Kindergartens in Austria are increasingly faced with staff shortages. According to the Educare platform, the company is mainly kept alive by assistants and helpers. This would be a great challenge for them, while at the same time the remaining educators were “in many cases at the limit of resilience”.
“The shortage of staff in primary education institutions endangers the quality of the relationship and education in working with the children – we advocate an Austrian-wide strategy!”, according to an open letter from Educare. As an immediate measure, extensive specialist advice is needed together with various organizations – from the Diakonie to Kinderfreunde Wien to Kinder in Wien – to help the education teams in the groups of small children, kindergartens and out-of-school care centers integrate untrained staff and support young professionals .
In addition, there is a need for compulsory national uniform training for assistants and helpers. Since primary education falls under the competence of the federal states, there are currently various solutions for this.
Several training initiatives have been launched
In response to the lack of staff, several training initiatives were launched, which were also welcomed by Educare. However, many companies employ untrained people as specialists, often involving more than half of the company. Given the staff shortage, further development of the professional profile of primary education teachers in the context of a teacher offensive in primary education is “more urgent than ever”, the letter states.
Need better conditions
Better framework conditions are also needed to keep dedicated primary school teachers in work and to control the shortage of skilled labor in the long term. What is specifically needed is a realistic plan to improve the ratio of skilled workers to children and smaller groups, multi-professional teams to provide support. Likewise, the equality of teachers and educators in terms of training, wages and working conditions, a year of induction for young professionals by experienced colleagues and a campaign to make the profession more attractive.
Source: Krone
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