A four-day school week remains a rarity in Dutch primary education despite the teacher shortage, NU.nl reports based on its poll and a conversation with experts. Of the 308 school leaders who completed the survey and the Academy & Professional Association of School Leaders (AVS), only three said they had already introduced a shortened school week this school year for one or more classes, which is less than one percent of respondents.
Of the school leaders who have not introduced the shortened week, fewer than 2 percent expect that this will still probably happen later in the school year. Fewer than 15 percent said they think this “might” happen.
“A four-day school week also brings ‘hassle’ with it,” Lianne ter Steeg, a policy adviser at the AVS and a former school leader, told NU.nl. “It is not simply a matter of sending a group home. Thought might be given to the missed teaching time. Will that be done up at another time? Will homework be given, and what about children of working parents? And if you free up a teacher for a day by choosing a four-day school week, preparation is required before that teacher can stand in front of another group.”
“Schools really do not introduce a four-day school week lightly,” Nienke Ruijs, who researches the teacher shortage at Maastricht University, told NU.nl. “Moreover, it is not even simply allowed. There are rules for that.”
School leaders dealing with an unfilled vacancy can hardly fall back on scientific literature about emergency solutions. “No large-scale research has been done on that. But what we do know based on American research is that a four-day school week is not a good idea,” Ruijs added.
When there is a serious need, school leaders reportedly prefer to put other staff in from of classes, such as a school director or a teaching assistant, with 4 in 10 respondents seeing it as the best solution. That is a bigger share than the options that only one respondent considered, including guest teachers or artists and scientists.
However, own staff might not always be qualified to cover for certain classes, said professor of the education labor market Frank Cörvers. “The school director and the remedial teacher often are, but teaching assistants usually do not have teaching qualifications. Or a trainee teacher stands in front of the class.” The latter is permitted under certain conditions.
The education union AOb also recognizes the issue. It said it sees plenty of education support staff and other unqualified employees standing in front of the class. “That is euphemistically called ‘organizing differently,’” board member Kim van Striend told NU.nl. “We understand the emergency measure because one wants to send pupils home, but it must not become a structural solution. That threatens to happen at some schools. Children have a right to good education, not just to childcare.”
