Teacher shortage in Saxony despite hiring more than 1000 new teachers

Despite the recruitment of more than 1,000 new teachers, there is still a shortage of teachers at the start of the new school year, particularly at secondary schools and special schools. Securing teaching remains a challenge, said Minister of Education Christian Piwarz (CDU) on Wednesday in Dresden. According to him, 1033 people have been recruited so far, mainly at grammar schools and elementary school. 773 of them are trained teachers, 120 are educational assistants at special schools, who do not replace special school teachers, and 140 are lateral entrants who will start teaching after their qualification.

Piwarz nevertheless assured that, depending on the "imponderables of life", there will be a teacher in front of every class next Monday. Of course, more recruitment would be desirable, but the applicant situation no longer allows for this. On a positive note, this time around a quarter of the 877 trained applicants came from other federal states and two thirds of them accepted the offer of employment. Together with the applicants from the Free State, a total of 88 percent of the trained teachers were recruited for the teaching profession. "We could only dream of retention rates of around 90 percent in the past, when it was not possible for teachers in Saxony to become civil servants."

Student numbers on the rise

According to Piwarz, more teachers are being recruited than are leaving, but it will be difficult if the number of pupils continues to rise. "We still have problems finding enough applicants regionally and depending on the type of school." However, the majority of those who have applied are also in the teaching profession. "We are happy about everyone who applies." We are a long way from times when selection was possible.

While teacher coverage in elementary school is back to 100 percent with the exception of one per thousand, there is an even greater need elsewhere, such as at secondary schools. "Overall, the subject of natural sciences is a cause for concern," said Piwarz. Attracting people to study these subjects as teachers is not satisfactory. Teacher recruitment is also difficult at vocational and special schools, as well as in regions such as the Erzgebirge, Chemnitz and the surrounding area.

The number of pupils in the Free State continues to rise. According to the ministry, there will be a total of around 536,000 children and young people in 2024/2025, compared to 517,711 in the previous school year. This is a foretaste of the future and shows "what major challenges we are facing", said Piwarz. However, there was a decline in the number of first-graders for the first time, from 41,200 to 40,500.