Slovenian schools have been complaining about an acute shortage of teachers, and now parliament has stepped in by passing a bill that makes it easier to hire teaching staff without teaching skills or without the national teaching exam following a unanimous vote on Wednesday.
The amended Organisation and Financing of Education Act was passed in a unanimous vote on Wednesday as a stop-gap measure to address the severe shortage of teaching staff, even as its authors acknowledged that more coherent action is needed.
“The bill addresses the critical shortage of professional staff and simplifies procedures for their hiring through small steps,” said Gašper Ovnik, a coalition MP. The aim is to secure more teaching staff while ensuring at least the current level of quality in education, he said.
Under the new legislation, schools will be able to hire experts without teaching skills but will have to pass several university-level exams three years after they are hired in order to keep their job.
Kindergartens and schools will be able to hire staff for two years if a job candidate has adequate education but has not yet passed the national exam for teachers. Once they pass the exam, they will get a permanent job contract.
Figures by the national association of Headteachers suggest schools need at least 4,000 teachers immediately. The situation will only worsen in the next few years as a large cohort of teachers retires.
To add to the problems, the government is currently planning a curricular reform that would add a mandatory second language in primary schools, and the industry has been pushing to make information science a mandatory subject for older students to improve their skills.
If either or both ideas come to fruition, even more teachers will be required.
(Sebastijan R. Maček | sta.si)
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