Overview

• About 1.76 million students return to classrooms, roughly 46,000 more than last year, with 132,000 first-graders and some 30,000 additional pupils at Gymnasien due to the reintroduced 13th grade.
• To secure the 2025/26 timetable, authorities hired roughly 4,200 teachers, including 1,300 newly created posts, plus about 600 multiprofessional support roles, alongside 4,200 new referendaries and 570 side entrants.
• Education minister Anna Stolz says lesson coverage for this year is ensured, while the 2026 moratorium bars creating new state posts for 2026/27 and any relief after that depends on the state budget negotiations.
• Teacher associations warn the freeze will deepen shortages they already call "more than tense," with the Realschullehrerverband projecting a gap of about 780 teachers at Realschulen by 2032.
• Staffing pressure is uneven, with Mittelschulen hit hardest—one district reported only two new trainees—so school offices are leaning on substitutes, retirees, mobile reserves and expanded German-language preparatory courses to plug gaps.