In the end, the minister of education wanted to correct something. Coalition dispute? Waste? Too little appreciation? At the state desk, Michael Piazolo (FW) shook his head. It wasn’t that long ago that, as a spokesman for education policy, he himself demanded that elementary and secondary school teachers in Bavaria should earn more. And that, he emphasized in the state parliament on Thursday, was still his personal opinion. But they are now in a coalition. More study places, more new positions: “We have pushed through other things for that,” he emphasizes.
Of course, this is not enough for the opposition factions of the Greens, SPD and FDP. Just like the Free Voters, they have been demanding more money for elementary and middle school teachers for years. “A13” is the keyword for this: the same grade as at the grammar schools. However, they fail again on Thursday in the state parliament against the resistance of the CSU. More money to redirect the run on high school teaching positions to elementary and secondary schools: there will be no such thing at the moment, as the finance minister is trying to keep things together.
The applicants really had come up with all sorts of arguments. Anna Schwamberger (Greens) started with a scenario that was supposed to show the diversity of the student body there, where the teachers earn an average of 600 euros less. Spelling weaknesses, attention problems, immigrant children: the teachers at the middle schools earned more, according to the educational policy spokeswoman.
“Supply and demand clearly show that something has to be done.”
Matthias Fischbach (FDP) also saw it that way. “Supply and demand clearly show that something has to be done,” he said in typical Liberal speech. His party, however, calls for a more comprehensive package, with a tenfold increase in the performance bonus for primary school teachers, higher fees for school principals and an increase in the staff quota for teaching provision at all types of schools to 110 percent. To this end, just like the SPD, she had submitted a subsequent application.
Should Elementary and Middle School Teachers Earn More? And would that remedy the teacher shortage? These are questions that are also a controversial topic in the coalition. Because the Free Voters have been demanding an adjustment of salaries for years, this was even an election campaign promise made by Minister of Education Michael Piazolo. But in the CSU they block, even on Thursday.
There is too much fear that an increase will not be financially viable and that it would result in a long rat tail – after all, with a view to the distance requirement, salaries in other areas would also have to be adjusted. This was emphasized on Thursday by the chairman of the committee for the public service, Wolfgang Fackler (CSU). He spoke of additional costs of 200 to 500 million euros; a number that Finance Minister Albert Füracker (CSU) was to repeat later. “We are guided by what tax revenue they give,” emphasized the top Bavarian treasurer.
Additional costs of 200 to 500 million euros
Meanwhile, Richard Graupner (AfD) called the Greens “cheap plagiarists”, after all they too had dared a push for more money, which, however, was not met with approval. Your chairman of the education committee was not in the plenary due to an illness, but Markus Bayerbach emphasized by phone on Thursday that an increase alone would not solve the problem. If, according to the long-time special school teacher, other underpaid professional groups such as special needs and specialist teachers would have to earn more. The AfD abstained from the vote.
Shortly before, even the deputy head of the education committee Tobias Gotthardt (FW) had given in for the sake of the peace of the coalition. You don’t even pay 200 million euros out of the coffeehouse, he admitted. And left a promise: “We’ll stick with it.”