On Friday, it will be particularly quiet at a secondary school in the north of Leipzig. Protesting teachers express their displeasure at the Saxon Ministry of Education's plans to increase the workload by remaining silent for two hours. Some of them are even considering sealing their lips with tape.
This protest action is part of the wider "100 schools in 10 days" campaign initiated by the education union GEW Sachsen. It is a direct response to the tour by the new Minister of Culture Conrad Clemens (CDU), who wanted to gain an overview of the school situation in the Free State with his "100 schools in 100 days" initiative.
Silence is not the only sign of protest: on Thursday, teachers across the state wore red clothing as a symbolic 'red card' against the ministry. More and more schools are developing creative ways to draw attention to the burdens caused by the planned additional work.
The ministry's push to oblige teachers to take on more teaching hours in order to reduce absences is particularly controversial.<>Teachers are only allowed to make up for the extra work they have done after several years. However, no later compensation is planned for older teachers, upper secondary school teachers and trainee teachers - they are to take on more teaching hours permanently.
The GEW state chairman Burkhard Naumann criticizes: The ministry focuses too much on statistics and neglects the long-term effects on the quality of education and the well-being of teachers. Naumann urgently warns that a short-term improvement in statistics is of little use if the sustainability of the school system suffers as a result.
Minister of Education Conrad Clemens (CDU) calls for teachers to work more and draws criticism from GEW and teachers (archive image) / Photo: Sebastian Kahnert/dpa
Saxony's Minister of Culture Conrad Clemens (CDU) is planning comprehensive measures against the shortage of teachers and the loss of teaching hours at schools. His "package of measures to improve teaching supply" includes increasing teachers' working hours and abolishing previous benefits for older teachers.
The key points are the abolition of reduced hours for teachers aged 58 and over, who were previously able to reduce their teaching time while receiving a full salary. In future, this regulation will only apply from the age of 63. In addition, more teachers with civil servant status are to be seconded from grammar schools to nearby secondary schools. Recruitment practices are also to be relaxed so that career changers without a university degree can work as teachers in future. At the same time, teachers are to be relieved - for example by reducing the number of exams, revising curricula and reducing bureaucracy.
There is currently a shortage of around 1,400 trained teachers in Saxony, with teaching coverage averaging 95 percent. As financial leeway has been exhausted, Clemens wants to focus primarily on working hours. The high proportion of teachers who retire early or work part-time poses an additional challenge.
The planned measures are meeting with considerable resistance. Teachers and trade unions are particularly critical of the additional burdens, which is leading to current protests in Saxony.
