Teachers as stopgaps: a quarter of lessons in Saxony are already being taught by teachers from outside the subject or school type

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Not only has the Saxon Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs failed once again to find enough new teachers for the 2026/2027 school year to finally get the teacher shortage in the Free State under control. To plug the gaps, even more teachers are now to be seconded than in the previous year. GEW Saxony has criticised this significant expansion of secondments in Saxony planned by the Minister for Education for the new school year, whereby teachers are often deployed in schools outside their usual type or in subjects for which they are not trained.

In the previous school year 2025/26, around 3,000 teachers were already seconded, as the official terminology puts it. A quarter of all lessons in Saxony were already being taught by teachers outside their specialism or school type, as shown by the Ministry of Education’s response to a parliamentary question from the BSW parliamentary group in the Saxon State Parliament (Drs. No.: 8/7431, see Annex 2).

The figure stood at 27 per cent in primary schools, 29 per cent in secondary schools and 62 per cent in special schools. There are also significant regional differences. Special needs schools in the Saxon Switzerland–Eastern Ore Mountains region topped the list with 87 per cent of lessons taught by teachers from outside the subject or school type.

Burkhard Naumann, Chair of the GEW Saxony education union, criticises this practice: “In the new school year, there are now set to be over 5,000 secondments. The proportion of lessons taught outside the teacher’s subject specialism or school type will continue to rise. Secondments place an immense burden on the teachers concerned. Whilst they have to familiarise themselves independently with different curricula and teaching materials, they leave new gaps at their home school that need to be filled.

This results in a staff merry-go-round, in which pupils experience constantly changing subject teachers and form tutors. The break-up of well-functioning teaching teams also has a negative impact on the quality of schooling. This does not result in more lessons being taught, but rather in the shortfalls being spread equally across all schools. It is particularly damaging when more lessons are cancelled at primary schools and class teachers change more frequently.”

This is how teachers burn out

Secondments are only sensible on a limited scale and when carried out with pedagogical discretion. From the GEW Saxony’s perspective, the current scale – with over 5,000 secondments and an ever-increasing number of lessons taught outside teachers’ specialisms or school types – lowers the quality of education in schools and leads to new staffing problems. Experienced teachers are demotivated, are giving up the profession or are rushing into retirement. For well-trained trainee teachers, the teaching profession in Saxony is becoming increasingly unattractive. This does not solve the home-grown problems at schools in Saxony; rather, it exacerbates them in the long term.

“We are calling for an end to the widespread practice of secondment and for the development of joint and sustainable solutions, such as attractive working-time accounts, incentives for older teachers to continue teaching, and bonuses for young teachers to take up posts in regions where there is a shortage of staff. The mistakes of the past must not be addressed solely at the expense of teachers,” Naumann urges the state government.