Parents and students support teacher strike.

Parents and students support teacher strike.

The whole primary and secondary education will strike on Wednesday 6 November. The unions and sector councils join forces for extra money for education to fight the teacher shortage. Also, Ouders & Onderwijs and the LAKS continue to support the education staff, just like in earlier actions. The teacher and school leader shortage is so big that classes are sent home daily across the country. The recently presented budget showed no extra money is made available. Teacher, student and parent, shoulder to shoulder!

The demands

Just before summer, the unions (AOb, FNV, FvOv, CNV Onderwijs and AVS) and the employers (PO-Raad and VO-raad) jointly submitted a claim to the cabinet of 423.5 million euros for 2020, for an emergency package for primary and secondary education. This emergency package remains needed to solve the shortages in education.

Lobke Vlaming, director of Ouders & Onderwijs, will also be present at the strike: ‘Parents and children notice daily that the pressure on education is too high. That has big consequences for the quality of education and the well-being of children. The teacher shortage only grows if we do nothing. This not only endangers quality but raises the question if there even is education at all.‘

Also, the LAKS supports the education staff. Chairman Pieter Lossie: ‘The urgency to come up with structural solutions against the shortage is still too little felt by politics. Meanwhile, the quality of education according to the education inspectorate decreases year after year, teachers increasingly complain about work pressure and students say motivation and tailored education fall short in their education. All these groups are affected by the teacher shortage.’
The unions gave minister Slob a deadline of 21 October.

Consequences for parents and students

Schools facing shortages of education staff and a lack of substitutes mainly solve these problems by teaching less. Many lessons are cancelled in secondary schools, while children are sent home in primary schools. In other cases, classes are merged or unqualified people are sent into classrooms. Some schools have now decided children can only go to school four days a week. Parents stated in the Staat van de Ouder that more government money is needed to tackle work pressure and the teacher shortage. A large majority of parents see this as the structural solution to the problem.

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