Overview

• A 2025 report from the Landesrechnungshof found Saxony’s spending on paid overtime rose from €600,000 in 2016 to €9.8 million in 2022 without cutting teaching-hour cancellations, which climbed 68 percent.
• The Gewerkschaft Erziehung und Wissenschaft has dismissed the audit office’s concerns, arguing that its review overlooked the bulk of unrecorded overtime performed outside scheduled class time.
• GEW chair Claudia Maaß highlighted tasks such as administrative work, lesson preparation, grading, class leadership and diagnostic activities as unpaid hours unaccounted for in official figures.
• The union is pressing for an increase to the current €30.27 hourly overtime rate for full-time teachers, which has remained unchanged since 2014 despite inflation and rising workloads.
• The dispute underscores ongoing teacher shortages in Saxony and Brandenburg, where persistent staff gaps continue to force millions of hours of instruction to be cancelled each year.