Education Hürzeler wants to relax salary deductions for experienced teachers without a diploma

Aargau's Director of Education, Alex Hürzeler, wants to relax the salary deduction for experienced but non-qualified teachers. The diploma is particularly important for performance at the beginning of a career, said Hürzeler in an interview.

In the current system, teachers who have been working in the profession for a long time but do not have a level-appropriate diploma feel unfairly treated, said the head of the Department of Education, Culture and Sport in an interview with the "Aargauer Zeitung" published on Monday.

This is because as soon as they change schools, they are subject to the same salary deduction for five years as inexperienced teachers without a diploma. "We now want to rethink this," said Hürzeler. In this case, he wants to relax the rules. For example, anyone without a teaching diploma at all would receive a ten percent salary deduction for five years.

Wages increase with experience

The aim is still for as many teachers as possible to catch up on their training. "But anyone who has not done so after five years is unlikely to do so later," said the SVP councillor. Regardless of their diploma, experienced teachers would receive a higher salary than their inexperienced colleagues.

According to the interview, it is not known how many teachers in the canton of Aargau teach without the correct diploma. Hürzeler said that it is not yet clear which specific figures would bring added value. He believes that there will probably never be statistics on the detailed level of training of teachers.