The education ministers want to make career entry for teachers lower-threshold. In the future, studying one subject should be enough – previously there were two. The education union protests.
Against the background of the teacher shortage, the federal states have agreed on reforms in teacher training. In Berlin, the Conference of Ministers of Education of the Federal States (KMK) voted in favor of easier access to the teaching profession, as the committee announced after the end of the meeting.
In the future, there should be the opportunity to become a teacher with just one subject. Currently, prospective teachers generally have to study at least two subjects.
Lower threshold Entry into the teaching profession
In their decision, the states also support dual teacher training courses and a so-called lateral entry master’s degree as an additional training path. This applies, for example, to engineering graduates who later decide to become teachers. It was said that the measures were intended to recruit teaching staff in the short and medium term.
The single-subject teacher model is intended, among other things, to make it easier for teachers from abroad who have only studied one subject to gain a foothold in their profession in Germany. It could also appeal to aspiring mathematicians or computer scientists who want to become teachers. They would then no longer have to study a second subject.
Education union: Decision leads to “Deprofessionalization”
The Saarland Education Minister and KMK President Christine Streichert-Clivot praised the decision: “This will mean that more teachers with different biographies will enrich our schools in the future,” said the SPD politician.
The education union VBE opposed the possibility of dual study courses and, in principle, also against single-subject teachers. “Deprofessionalization must be stopped,” said VBE chairman Gerhard Brand.
Teacher shortage due to demographic change
In the future, the teacher shortage will primarily affect secondary schools after primary schools. This is what forecasts and calculations by experts and calculations by the states have shown. In its regular documentation on the need and supply of teachers published in December, the KMK cited, among other things, increasing student numbers due to immigration as a reason for this. In addition, there is an increasing need for personnel due to the expansion of all-day care and increased requirements, for example in terms of inclusion and language support.
The demographic development in Germany is also reflected in the labor market for teachers: the “baby boomer generation” is leaving working life, with the following generations having fewer births, according to the KMK documentation.