Increase in teaching hours debated by unions, ministry
Teachers and unions in Flanders are debating the education minister’s latest proposal to increase the number of hours secondary teachers must spend in front of the class
€150 million savings
The proposal is part of a package of measures being taken to make improve the image of the teaching profession. At present, secondary school teachers’ classroom hours depend on which grade they are teaching. For the first grade, which covers the first two of six years of secondary school in Flanders, teaching hours are 22. In the second grade, that reduces to 21, and in the subsequent grades to 20.
Crevits said that all teachers should spend 22 hours a week in front of the class and that this measure would save €150 million, as staff currently tasked with supervising pupils outside of teaching hours would be let go.
Marnix Heyndrickx, chair of VSOA Onderwijs, said that teachers should not be the source of savings and that temporary teachers would lose their jobs. The COC union said there were some positive elements but added: “You cannot possibly speak of increasing the attractiveness of the teaching profession if teachers in the second and third grades undergo a substantial workload increase.”
ACOD’s Raf De Weerdt, meanwhile, said that the ministry “would do well to keep in mind that this debate was about improving this career” and that a proposal to increase working hours was “painful”.
Photo courtesy Onderwijsbeleid Antwerpen
