German teacher burnout and staffing shortages in Bavarian schools, Digi Mart USA News (Germany): A secondary school teacher in a large German city has described the strain of daily school life in a widely shared post on Reddit. Writing in the r/luftablassen thread, he said, “I’m fed up,” and described working in sixth and eighth grade classes where extreme behavioral problems often make normal teaching nearly impossible.
The teacher said he typically leaves home shortly before 7 a.m. and often does not return until around 8 p.m., and he continues grading papers at home.
“The job has become completely crazy,” he wrote, describing a workload that he said has left him with little time for regular instruction.
He is not alone in his experience. Katja Giesler, a primary school teacher from Wiesbaden, told the Frankfurter Rundschau that many schools now rely on career changers without teacher training to cover basic instruction.
With class sizes of 23 to 25 children, she said, there is little room for individual support, and teachers increasingly become supervisors.
Staff strain is also reflected in departure figures. According to former teachers cited in the report, civil-servant teachers rarely resign voluntarily because doing so can bring significant losses in pension entitlements.
Instead, many leave early due to occupational incapacity. In Bavaria, 29.5 percent of departing teachers most recently left for this reason, compared with 13.6 percent in the state of Bremen.
The situation in Bavarian schools is worsening. At primary and middle schools in the Free State, roughly 1,800 teachers are currently sick or only partially fit for duty, leaving more than 500 full-time positions unfilled.
Acute staff shortages have forced some schools to cut lessons such as physical education.
Student performance gaps add to the pressure. According to a survey by the Bavarian Philologists’ Association of more than 1,800 grammar school teachers, only 29 percent of fifth graders have adequate spelling skills, and fewer than 40 percent have sufficient reading comprehension.
The survey documented significant deficits in basic skills.
To address the shortage, Bavarian state politicians are discussing restrictions on part-time arrangements for civil-servant teachers. Teachers’ associations such as the BLLV, however, are calling for better working conditions, relief from bureaucratic tasks and more staff for pedagogical relationship work.
