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"Don't feel like working tomorrow?" Advertising campaign for teachers in Baden-Württemberg – with an old slogan

Photo: Christoph Schmidt / picture alliance / dpa

"Insult to all teachers", "ridiculed to the hilt", "impudence" and "scandalous": With an advertising poster for the teaching profession, the Ministry of Education in Baden-Württemberg has drawn the ire of teachers' associations and the opposition. After the sharp protests, the ministry is now giving in: The slogan is to be changed. The other seven posters of the campaign against the shortage of teachers are not affected.

The poster at Stuttgart Airport "Don't feel like working tomorrow?" will be pasted over and replaced by "Don't feel like your current job?", the Ministry of Culture announced. It was never our intention to discredit even one teacher with this poster," said Minister of Education Theresa Schopper, "no one here has even come up with the idea of associating teachers with the attribute lazy."

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However, teachers and their professional associations in particular had perceived this quite differently. "Before this campaign, you didn't know how much stupidity would fit on a single poster," said Karin Broszat, chairwoman of the Association of Secondary School Teachers. The chairman of the Association of Education and Training (VBE), Gerhard Brand, said: "The poster is an insult to all teachers in the country. It's a slap in the face for all the teachers who have worked to exhaustion in three years of the coronavirus pandemic." The level of the campaign is unspeakable. "This is an impudence that simply leaves us speechless," Brand said.

"The teachers, who gave their best every week with night and Sunday work despite massive stress, feel ridiculed by this campaign," criticized the chairman of the Philologists' Association, Ralf Scholl. Instead of spending money on provocative advertising, the Ministry of Education should improve the working conditions of teachers. "Then the teaching profession would be interesting enough again for really motivated first-year students," says Scholl.

"Thoroughly failed" and "not a good idea"

Communication scientist Frank Brettschneider also considers the new advertising campaign to be a "complete failure". It is true that the goal of an advertising campaign is attention. "But once I've gained attention, a message has to follow. And this message is not good at all," said the professor of the University of Hohenheim of the German Press Agency.

There is still the impression in parts of the population that teachers are constantly on vacation. "This is reinforced by the campaign – and that damages the reputation of the sender and the profession," said Brettschneider. "That wasn't a good idea."

The ministry had only received support for the controversial campaign from students in the country. The slogan on the poster could easily be misinterpreted, said Berat Gürbüz, chairman of the state student advisory board: "But on closer inspection, the true purpose of the campaign becomes apparent: teachers should not be ridiculed, but rather others should be motivated to take an interest in the teaching profession."

The student council therefore sees no basis for declaring the entire campaign a scandal. This is not fair. It would be better for all parties involved to work together to find solutions in order to meet the demand for teachers in a long-term and targeted manner.

However, the correction of the advertising campaign that has now been announced has met with only restrained enthusiasm. The reaction of the Ministry of Education to the poster in Stuttgart Airport was "correct and overdue," said Karin Broszat of the Association of Secondary School Teachers, but: "One might have wished for the simple and important word 'apology' in the minister's statement to the entire teaching staff in Baden-Württemberg." The "outrageous incident" with the poster at the airport had "caused great damage to the relationship of trust," Broszat said.

him/ with material from dpa