Teacher contracts can be terminated more easily
In future, it will be easier to terminate temporary employment contracts for teachers. This is provided for in a new recruitment guideline from the Thuringian Ministry of Education, which comes into force on Tuesday, as the ministry announced in response to an inquiry. This mainly affects lateral entrants. Until now, some of them did not meet the requirements to be directly employed on a permanent basis. With the new directive, however, they can now remain in the teaching profession for longer after a kind of probationary period.
"Applicants who have proven themselves in our schools, who have become indispensable and who often already take on many important tasks in the school community in practice, can now be employed on a permanent basis," said Thuringia's Education Minister Helmut Holter. In times of teacher shortages, this means new flexibility. "This is because we can finally keep colleagues in the system for the long term who have already rendered outstanding services to our pupils as temporary employees and for whom the teaching profession has become not just a daily routine, but a vocation."
However, the guideline does tie the termination to certain requirements: The teacher must have already worked in the job for at least one year and have proven to be suitable. In addition, no other teacher with a higher qualification may apply for the post. The applicant's suitability is to be proven through observations by the school management and the respective school authority.
Another innovation is aimed at the recognition of qualifications of potential lateral entrants. Previously, candidates had to have their qualifications checked by the Ministry of Education. Now this is to be done at school board level. The ministry hopes that this will speed up the examination process.
More and more lateral entrants have been recruited in Thuringia for years because there is an acute shortage of teachers in some schools. Almost a quarter of the new teachers hired last school year were lateral entrants (22.2 percent).
With the new guidelines, teachers who excel in their probationary period can now secure permanent positions within the education system. This will significantly benefit schools that have relied on the skills and dedication of temporary educators.
Moreover, the recognition of qualifications for lateral entrants will now occur at the school board level, potentially expediting the process and encouraging more individuals to join the teaching profession in Thuringia.
Source: www.dpa.com
