Schools – Starting school with challenges – Teacher shortage remains an issue – Bavaria

Munich (dpa/lby) – Teacher shortage, AI, constitutional quarter hour, digital equipment – the new school year starts in Bavaria with a number of challenges.

“We don’t have enough personal staff. We have a shortage of teachers,” said Education Minister Anna Stolz (Free Voters). “The situation is challenging, it is tense, but it is manageable.” Stolz announced that she wanted to create more freedom in the curricula, bring more sport and exercise to schools and take the pressure off the students.

On Tuesday, classes will begin again for around 1.72 million students and their teachers. Among them are 134,000 first-graders. This means that the total number of students has increased by around 31,000 compared to the previous year.

1,600 newly created teaching positions

For the new school year, the Free State is hiring around 3,800 new teachers, including 1,600 newly created positions. In order to relieve teachers of their core tasks, there are also 600 additional positions for multi-professional staff, including 300 teaching support staff.

Stolz stressed that core teaching was also 100 percent guaranteed at the primary and secondary schools that were particularly affected. Two percent of the required teaching positions were not yet filled.

The President of the Bavarian Teachers’ Association, Simone Fleischmann, has repeatedly highlighted the shortage of teachers as the biggest problem, especially at middle schools.

Focus on health

“The primary goal of schools should be to make children and young people strong for their future lives,” said Stolz. “This year, I will significantly increase the focus on the health of pupils, but also of teachers.” “Resilience, mindfulness, stress management and time management are becoming increasingly important,” promised the minister.

The curricula in all types of schools are to be modernized and stripped down; the examination culture is to be further developed. In the age of AI, knowledge takes on a different meaning than it did years ago.

They want to address all questions “in dialogue with school families.” One issue is the pressure to perform: “Where can we relieve the pressure?” However, schools should also prepare students for a performance-oriented society – and thus enable young people to deal with pressure.

Changes in the new school year

A new feature is the so-called constitutional quarter hour, which began in some grades this school year. It is intended to be regularly incorporated into various subjects during normal teaching time and to include current events.

Another innovation at the start of school is the implementation of the PISA offensive, which is intended to strengthen basic skills in primary schools. In response to the poor PISA results, more mathematics and German are to be included in the timetable. To do this, primary schools are to cut hours in English, music, art, crafts and design. The teachers are free to do as they please, stressed Stolz. English and music could be combined in some way – by singing English songs.

“Another task remains school integration,” said Stolz. With the reasons given for language proficiency assessments, language support measures and the further development of German classes, a solid foundation has been created for this at the start of school. The “digital school of the future” is taking further shape with the start of a comprehensive 1:1 equipment with mobile devices.

SPD wants bonus for less wealthy families

The SPD faction in the Bavarian state parliament had proposed a state bonus of 250 euros for less well-off families at the start of school. The SPD had not made it clear how it would finance this, said Stolz. But the state is not leaving families alone.

© dpa-infocom, dpa:240906-930-224984/3