There are only a few days left for the academic year. The Ministry of National Education (MEB) sent the 2022-2023 paid teacher announcements, called the ‘slavery system in education’, to all education directorates. Paid teachers, whose number reached 85,000 in 2021, are on the agenda once again. Education unions, on the other hand, reacted to the paid teaching system.
The education system, which turned into a blackboard, caused tens of thousands of teachers to be victims. While problems emerged in the system due to the wrong policies applied in teacher appointments, this situation caused a shortage of around 700,000 teachers waiting for appointment and nearly 150,000 teachers. MEB, on the other hand, continues to solve the problem with paid teachers instead of solving the problem radically.
PRIORITY WILL BE GIVEN TO 2021-2022
Paid teaching, which comes to the fore every year in education, came to the fore again with the announcement of the opening of applications. In the letter sent to the education directorates, the priority is paid teachers in the 2021-2022 academic year. It was noted that the number of teachers working in this period was the highest in history. While the number of paid teachers was 85,513 in the 2021-2022 academic year, it was stated that there were 25,469 paid teachers in Istanbul, the city with the highest paid teachers. It was recorded that 5,019 paid teachers were working in Ankara.
“TEACHER DOESN'T HAVE A PAID, IT HAS STAFF”
Pointing out that the teaching profession should not have a paid employee, Anatolia Education Union (AES) Chairman Mehmet Alper Öğretici stated that vacancies should be filled with paid teachers and said, “The paid teaching system should come to an end. While there is a shortage of more than 100,000 teachers, it is not correct to fill this gap with teachers who earn less than the minimum wage. Nearly 1,000,000 teachers who are waiting for appointment are replaced by paid teachers, more than half of whom are not graduated from the faculty of education. Permanent teachers required to be taken. A teacher does not have a paid employee, it has a permanent staff.”
THE RIGHTS OF PAID TEACHERS MUST BE IMPROVED
Pointing out that the Ministry of National Education is trying to close some of the existing teacher gap with paid teachers, Chairman of the Conscious Teachers Association (ÖĞ-DER), Hamdi Sürücü stated that improvements should be made in the rights of nearly 100,000 paid teachers and said, "Every year, an average of 20,000 teachers retire. Teacher appointments, on the other hand, continue to meet only those who are retired. The teacher shortage, which was around 120,000 last year, is being tried to be met with paid teachers. But around 800,000 unassigned teachers are waiting for appointment. If the promise of opening village schools, put forward by the Minister, is realized, it is possible that there will be a tendency to hire paid teachers again. In this case, it is a fact that the number of paid teachers will increase compared to previous years. Paid teachers, on the other hand, should have the same rights as permanent teachers, that's how it should work. As permanent teachers can receive additional tuition fees on holidays such as official holidays and holidays due to weather conditions, paid teachers should also be able to benefit from these rights.”
Drawing attention to the need for paid teachers to get a cadre, Gülşah Yavuz, Deputy Chairwoman of the Education and Science Power Solidarity Union (Egitim-Gücü-Sen), stated that teachers are exploited with the paid teaching system and said, "The most unacceptable segregation between teachers is undoubtedly paid teaching. Although improvement in course fees seems like a positive development, the real improvement is a step towards hiring paid teachers as in 2018. The application guides prepared by various provincial and district national education directorates to make paid teaching almost legal and permanent are not acceptable. The Ministry of National Education by not making necessary permanent staff appointments in line with the need, exploits the labor of our teachers who love their profession spiritually and financially.”