Lack of teacher in NRW: Now it is caught up - 80 new study places!
Lack of teacher in NRW: Now it is caught up - 80 new study places!
The lack of teachers in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) increasingly achieves worrying dimensions, especially at primary schools. Despite the efforts of the black and green state government, around 8,000 teaching positions are vacant. In view of this situation, new measures have been decided to counteract the teacher crisis and to improve the educational situation in schools. From the winter semester 2025/2026, 80 additional study places will be created in the primary school teaching office. This initiative is supported by a special university contract, the Ina Brandes, the Minister of Culture and Science, signed on March 13, 2025. The RWTH Aachen and the Bergische Universität Wuppertal work together in this new course.
The University of Wuppertal can fall back on its many years of experience in elementary school teacher training, while RWTH Aachen offers expertise in training for higher school forms. The lessons and the exams are mainly held in Aachen, which gives students access to the extensive infrastructure of RWTH. These new measures are part of the more comprehensive "Study Offensive II", which already created 350 study places in the primary school teaching office in 2025, financed with over 11 million euros from the 2025 budget.
Study position offensive and financial support
Since the introduction of study position II, a total of 465 new bachelor's degree places have been set up in the primary school teaching office and in special education support. The total number of new study places in the primary school teaching office is now 545. In North Rhine -Westphalia, over 4,700 places for new students are available in the teacher courses. The state government and the universities in North Rhine -Westphalia are actively committed to covering the need for teachers in these areas. Over 1000 additional study places in primary school teaching, special education, nursing education and social pedagogy are created overall. These measures cost around 115 million euros by 2025.
The current courses are structured as follows:
- Grundschullehramt : 300 study places from winter semester 2020/2021, another 80 from the winter semester 2025/2026.
- Special education : 250 out of 500 planned Bachelor study places.
- nursing pedagogy : 120 new master's studies at several universities of applied sciences, expansion began in the winter semester 2019/2020.
- social pedagogy : 140 Bachelor study places, previously only 40 at the TU Dortmund.
Package of measures to combat the shortage of teachers
In addition to the study position offensive, the state government presented a fourth package of measures to combat the acute shortage of teachers in schools. This package includes several measures that aim at short -term and long -term solutions:- anticipation points based on G9 : 800 teachers are to be hired indefinitely.
- temporary employment of teachers : Schools receive more flexibility in setting teachers.
- Hiring of social pedagogical specialists : Up to 400 teaching positions can be filled by social pedagogical specialists.
- flexibility of the weekly compulsory hours : school lines can adapt compulsory hours as required.
- Additional independent lessons : Teacher candidate can teach up to six hours independently, with appropriate remuneration.
Minister Yvonne Gebauer emphasizes that there are no bans in the fight against the shortage of teachers. The first packages of measures already showed successes with over 3,260 new places until mid -2020. The challenges remain great, but the will to improve the personnel situation in schools is clearly noticeable. The future of the educational system in North Rhine -Westphalia depends crucially on the implementation of these initiatives and how quickly and effectively the teaching shortage is tackled.
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