The 1040 teaching hour norm has been sneaked back into the classroom by the backdoor and teachers are not happy. They feel politicians have betrayed them.

VVD education spokesman Ton Elias has a knack for rubbing teachers the wrong way. On the day the teachers decided to come out on strike, the Volkskrant published a letter by Elias guaranteed to have them frothing at the mouth.
‘Today teachers are striking because of all sorts of things but of course what it is really all about is that instead of a 12 week holiday they will have an 11 week holiday’, he wrote.
Shoes
Not an auspicious start. The letter continued with a complaint about a lack of respect shown Elias when he spoke at a demonstration last year. ‘(…)Teachers are supposed to have a moral compass so how could it be that they had a pile of shoes ready to throw at politicians’ photographs?’, Elias asks. Not to mention the indignity of having his speech interrupted by boos and whistles. ‘They didn’t even have the decency to listen’, he splutters.
To add insult to injury, when Elias asked one teacher if her behaviour – she was pounding his photograph with a shoe – was worthy of the profession, she told him he should count himself lucky she hadn’t chucked it at his head.
Angry
A little bit of respect then, after all. Apart from many an unkind reaction – the education spokesman’s letter contained 26 mistakes, according to one comment – the letter prompted an angry if measured response, in the same paper, from Gerard Olthof, director at the Mencia Mendoza Lyceum in Breda.
‘Teachers are angry, but not about their salary’, he said. ‘They know there isn’t any room for increases. They are angry because of the contempt shown to them by politicians like nincompoop Elias who, when three weeks in the job, proclaimed that 30% of teachers weren’t up to the job.’
Moaning
‘Teachers are angry at PVV MP Harm Beertema who thinks all problems will magically disappear when students no longer call teachers by their first name. Beertema told this paper that in stead of thinking about their educational duties they sit around in the staffroom moaning about their salary.’
But most of all, Olthof says, teachers are angry at weathervane education minister Marja Bijleveld who is ‘trying to sell a 3 to 4% work increase as a way of diminishing teachers’ workload’.
Not a word, Olthof says, about ‘performance pay schemes that don’t work and teachers who are having to cope with the highest number of students per class and the highest number of weekly classes in Europe.’
Long holidays? Yes, but says, Olthof, ‘teachers habitually work overtime, also during the holidays. (..) And they need an education minister who supports them and who, two years after an accord on teaching hours has been reached, lets herself be swayed by a motion from the PVV to turn back the clock.’
Short memory
Trouw says the striking teachers have a point. Bijsterveld has a short memory, the paper writes. The minister agreed with the advice given to her by an education committee installed to look into the number of teaching hours after the subject had turned into a battleground where schools, unions and politicians were taking pot shots at each other.
Low staffing levels and a compulsive number of hours meant bored and unsupervised students were not doing anything constructive in the schools classrooms. In order to decrease the pressure on teachers they were asked to sacrifice a week’s holiday and this was accepted’, the paper writes.
Lose-lose situation
Trouw too is baffled by the minister giving in to the PVV. ‘it seems that the PVV thinks the more, the better. But there is no scientific proof that more teaching hours lead to better performance. Besides, there is no money to pay for these extra hours. But, undeterred, CDA and VVD agreed and the minister defended her plan with as much fervour as he had the last one.’
The paper doesn’t see any solution. ‘The extra hours have been slipped back in through the backdoor and in that light teacher’s irritation at having to give up a week’s holiday is understandable. But teachers have to be careful not to lose public sympathy.
‘The relationship between teachers and politicians is at an all time low and a compromise that was painstakingly reached has been relegated to the dustbin. Teachers are in the street instead of in front of a classroom. It’s a lose-lose situation’, the paper concludes.