The holidays have barely begun for primary school pupils, but the preparations for the next school year are well underway. As the classes have been divvied up between certified teachers and temporary teachers, temporary teachers have noticed a worrying decrease in their demand. This has prompted several temporary teachers to contact RTL to express their grievances, noting that they had long been considered competent enough to take over classes.

Listen to the original report in Luxembourgish:

After a request for comment by RTL, the Ministry of Education stated that all classes will be fully staffed at the start of the school year and that, unlike in 2017/2018, there will be no shortage of teachers, potentially reducing the need for temporary teachers. "We have enough teachers," says Francine Vanolst, department head of primary education at the Ministry.

Certified teachers, teaching interns who have completed their training, and about 226 people from the national teaching competition will be the first to be allocated to classes across Luxembourg, in favour of temporary teachers.

"The efforts we have made in recent years to recruit individuals with a Bachelor's degree have allowed us to fill 95.7% of available positions with qualified teaching staff," says Francine Vanolst. The University of Luxembourg has also made significant efforts to retrain people from different educational and career backgrounds.

With the majority of teaching positions being filled by certified teachers, this does mean that temporary teachers only have a limited number of teaching positions available to them. They can apply for new positions or continue where they have been working before. Among the 499 temporary teachers, 488 have found a place in the municipalities, in the administration, or are returning to the classes where they taught before the end of the school year.

Vanolst stressed, "it is extremely important for us to allow temporary teachers who are working in administrative offices the opportunity to teach at the school where they have taught previously especially when it comes to replacing a teacher on sick leave or maternity leave."

She firmly rejects the proposition that temporary teachers are becoming less necessary. "Absolutely not, we are very happy to have them. They are assigned to administrative offices, and from there, we send them to schools. They work in schools to cover teachers on leave, especially teachers on long-term leaves. This means they are also present in these schools for longer periods of time."

For now, however, both the teaching staff and school children are looking forward to nine weeks of summer holidays before school resumes on Monday, September 16.