Perspective

“Why is there not more appreciation for young teachers?” asks Willem Konings. He is 29 years old and teaches business organization and business sciences in the fifth year of secondary school at the Minimen Institute in Leuven. “It’s a great job. And I work at a super school. But still something is nagging.”

Konings’ assignment has been extended again and again since September. “Without an annual contract you live in constant uncertainty. Maybe the sick colleague will come back, maybe not. The management told me that in the worst case scenario, they can only provide certainty about the subsequent period on the last day of a holiday. To be clear: you will not be reimbursed for that holiday if your assignment is not extended. I now had to wait until four days before the Easter holidays to find out that my assignment after the holidays will continue until June.”

The situation leads to work stress and financial stress, he notes. “The system hardly allows young teachers to be rewarded for their efforts and competencies. As a starter, you take on extra commitments, you voluntarily do extra hours of co-teaching, you do your very best. But you don’t get enough appreciation for that from education. That is detrimental for starting teachers.”

The situation is not new for Konings. He previously taught at a Brussels college. “I quickly became tired and disillusioned. I taught economics for six months to students who were more than six months behind. The classes in the third grade were in a state of dissolution: tired of school and completely disorganized. I was the only teacher with an economics master’s degree, although I still needed a lot of support myself. I had to prepare the new content entirely myself. The sick teacher was unreachable. In the meantime, I also followed the educational master’s degree. That was useful, but an extra burden, with lessons often between 6 and 10 p.m..”

Fragmented jobs

The question of how education can improve the situation of starting teachers has been obscured in recent years by the acute teacher shortage. But the need remains very high. There are currently approximately 3,600 vacancies open at the VDAB. That figure is blinding, because not all starting teachers have a good perspective. About 70 percent of those jobs are temporary. These often involve fragmented jobs, short interims of a few weeks or not obvious combinations, such as French-geography teacher or English-LO teacher.

“I really enjoy my job, but I would seriously hesitate to take up such a vacancy again,” says Konings. The heavy workload, lack of perspective and financial uncertainty forced him to seek professional help from a psychologist last year. “Without a teaching diploma, I earned less than 1,000 euros net in my first part-time assignment, even though I spent 32 hours a week preparing, meeting, extra commitments and teaching itself. That caused a lot of stress.”

Coaching

Education benefits from keeping young, passionate teachers on board, emphasizes Kristof De Witte, educational economist at KU Leuven. “Today we burn too many young people in those early years,” he says.

The figures from previous parliamentary questions speak volumes. In secondary education, 37 percent of starting teachers left teaching after five years. That is striking, because teachers are otherwise very stuck. The reasons are diverse, from the high workload to the administrative burden. “We know that those first years are very important to keep people in education. They therefore experience great growth as teachers. By burning them out, we lose exceptionally good strength.”

The education report of the ‘Committee of Wise Men’, of which De Witte was a member, advocates an ‘induction year’ for starting teachers. Schools would then receive the resources in September that would normally only be released if teachers were absent during the school year. This allows them to give young teachers a one-year contract, with additional guidance. This guidance would come from both the school itself and from the teacher training colleges, which would better monitor their graduates.

Other new teachers see even more possibilities. Ilse Van Wijnendaele (52) was a manager in elderly care for a long time and previously worked as a teacher in higher education. She recently became a lateral entrant in secondary education and teaches various psychological subjects in the field of welfare sciences. “Education can still learn a lot from companies in terms of coaching. Young teachers find various things very difficult, from students who are too loud to students who are too quiet. But this is hardly talked about among teachers. By listening to new teachers and working with them as a more experienced teacher, spectacular things are possible.”

Now that she is in the classroom herself, her admiration for young teachers has only increased. “I bring a lot of baggage. That is the advantage of lateral entrants. Yet I also suffer from the education system, such as the high administrative burden. Until you see what you get back from the students and what impact you have. That gives you goosebumps.”