“Standard school hours must be reduced”

• Nina Jansen

  publisher NOS Stories

• Mike Megans

  publisher NOS Stories

The standard timetable for secondary education students must be lowered. The educational organization AOb supports this. Teachers spend too much time working in front of the classroom and this is only increasing due to the teacher shortage. “There is a huge danger of them running out and dropping out of education,” says AOB President Tamar van Gelder.

School principals struggle to ensure that classes can continue, they say in a survey that NOS Stories sent to all secondary school boards in the Netherlands. Principals ask teachers to take over classes, teach subjects they haven’t studied, or put interns in front of the class.

This also happens at the Bijlmer Open School Community in Amsterdam. “We use all kinds of tricks to get teachers in front of the class,” says principal Maryse Knook. Of the 140 teachers in front of the classroom, ten are in training. A gym teacher also teaches math without official papers. Some teachers work more hours than full-time jobs.

Knook sees the teachers leave after a few years. This has to change, he thinks. “If teachers are given more hours to develop their subject, it really becomes a lot more fun to teach.” Knook thinks the deficit can be resolved in the long run.

Gymnastics teacher Etien also teaches math, without the necessary papers:

The AOb and the Secondary Education Council also want teachers to be less in front of the classroom. “Teachers should be given more time for lesson preparation, development and professionalization. They now have half an hour to prepare, talk to a student and take grades,” says Van Gelder. “If the pressure at work decreases, job satisfaction increases. It is important to retain teachers, otherwise the mop with the tap will remain open,” adds Henk Hagoort of the secondary education council.

According to the AOb, it is possible to increase teacher development times only if the standard of teaching hours is lowered. According to the VO Council, the number of compulsory teaching hours in the Netherlands is “significantly higher” than in other European countries.

But what does such a reduction mean for the quality of education? “A teacher with a full-time appointment now offers about 25 lessons a week. You can think of 20 lessons, so you have more time to prepare. Lessons go less on autopilot and get better,” says Hagoort. She points out that there is more and more personalization in the classroom. “There has to be time for that. If the workload goes down, the quality goes up. This is good for the students.”

Also, according to the AOb, “it is better to have one hour of teaching from a licensed teacher who has had time to prepare than two hours from an unskilled teacher.”

Minister Wiersma for Primary and Secondary Education believes that schools already have a lot of freedom to fill their teaching time themselves. “It doesn’t have to be in the classroom. It can also be studying alone, giving a presentation or doing an internship. There is space to fill the time, make the most of it.”

In addition, the standard timetable is hardly enforced, the Education Inspectorate said. Only if there are signs that the quality of education is at stake does the Inspectorate see reason to check.

“But a norm is a norm,” says Van Gelder. “As a motorist you are not allowed to overtake on the right on the freeway. Police may say they don’t enforce unless road safety is at stake, but that creates a huge twilight zone. If the standard can go away then remove from the law”.

This is a bridge too far. “I think it’s a quality risk.” The minister expressed his concerns about basic skills. “Good reading, math, writing, knowing how we interact in the Netherlands. Those scores have plummeted in recent years. If we send fewer children to school, these skills may get worse. I don’t have a good feeling about it.”