Schools in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague may face closure because of ongoing teacher shortages despite corona billions, city education chiefs have warned.

The council executives are calling for the wage gap between primary school teachers and secondary school teachers to be closed, a structural budget to make teaching a more attractive option for students, and measures to encourage teachers not to abandon the profession, they told the AD.

In The Hague 15% of vacancies are unfilled. ‘I visit these schools every week and a silent disaster is happening there. The lack of teachers means schools will have to close,’ The Hague’s education chief Hilbert Bredemeijer told the AD.

Rotterdam’s Said Kasmi said the situation in the port city, with almost 13% of posts unfilled is ‘worrying’ while in Amsterdam Marjolein Moorman said she has had signals that some schools in the capital will not open at all after the summer holidays.

The money set aside by the education ministry to help schools overcome the impact the coronavirus has had, some €8.5bn over two years, will not help teacher shortages, they said.

‘We are missing the link with bringing in more people into the profession. We need a permanent budget for that. This is still temporary, a stop gap,’ Moorman said.