Brandenburg

Potsdam (dpa / bb) – In view of the great shortage of teachers, Brandenburg’s new Minister of Education Steffen Freiberg (SPD) wants to motivate educators to retire later. To this end, the teaching obligation for teachers over the age of 63 should be reduced by a maximum of ten hours, Freiberg explained on Saturday at a conference of the state school advisory board, in which teachers, parents and students are represented, among others. Around 600 teachers in Brandenburg reach the age of 63 every year, the minister said. If more than half of these educators accept the offer, a lot has already been gained.

According to Freiberg, around 80 percent of Brandenburg’s teachers are currently retiring before they reach the normal retirement age. Around half of teachers retire at the age of 63. With a reduction in the teaching obligation to up to 17 hours at primary schools and 15 at secondary schools, teachers should be motivated to stay in the school until they retire. Instead of the reduced teaching hours, the educators in the schools should be used for other tasks such as advising trainee teachers, working groups or supporting the school management.

At the same time, Freiberg conceded the controversial proposal by his predecessor Britta Ernst (SPD) to reallocate 200 teaching positions to school assistants and social workers because of the expected shortage of teachers. According to his own statement, as State Secretary, he played a key role in developing this plan. Instead, the schools should in future be able to use the financial means for vacant positions to a certain extent on their own for supplementary teaching offers, assistance or school social work.

In addition, a large-scale advertising campaign on social media throughout the German-speaking area is to be used to recruit trained teachers and lateral entrants from other professions. Freiberg wants to use a budget of two million euros for this and next year. “The Ministry of Education will make it even clearer in the future: Brandenburg is an attractive location for teachers and offers them very good general conditions,” said Freiberg according to the announcement.

In the coming school year, 1,800 teachers would have to be hired in Brandenburg. Because so many educators and lateral entrants are hard to come by on the market, Freiberg’s predecessor, Ernst, wanted to reallocate the 200 teaching posts to assistants. This would have meant that additional offers such as remedial teaching or all-day offers would have to be canceled at schools. Because this also met with resistance in his own SPD parliamentary group in the state parliament and among the co-governing Greens, Ernst resigned in mid-April.

The education policy spokeswoman for the SPD parliamentary group in the state parliament, Katja Poschmann, welcomed the minister’s plans. “A large-scale, nationwide advertising campaign will help us to attract even more teachers to our schools,” she said after the meeting of the state school advisory board. “The “63+” program is also convincing and sets the right incentives to continue employing teachers with fewer teaching hours.”

Poschmann also expressly welcomed the fact that Freiberg is no longer pursuing the reallocation of 200 jobs. It is highly unlikely that the 1,800 new hires required could be realised, she said. “The decisive difference to the previous proposal, however, is that the personnel costs for vacant positions go directly to the school concerned, in order to be able to hire additional teaching and support staff for the entire day-to-day school life at this school.”

The education policy spokeswoman for the Left Group, Kathrin Dannenberg, was also satisfied with the minister’s plans. “The reversal of job cuts that we demanded is now in the Freiberg plan,” she said. In addition, the schools could use the funds from vacant teaching posts for necessary support. “Our demand to relieve older teachers, i.e. 63 plus, has also found its way into the new plan, as has the nationwide advertising campaign we demanded,” she emphasized.

© dpa-infocom, dpa:230513-99-675433/4