Teachers from Poland and Greece find jobs in Germany with the help of EURES

Teachers for North Germany was initiated by the Federal Ministry for Education in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, a region in north-eastern Germany that borders with Poland. After seeing promotional posts shared by the Ministry on social media, Polish applicants interested in teaching abroad began to apply for vacancies in schools in the region’s countryside.

Applicants receive valuable support from EURES

Applicants were supported through the administrative processes by EURES Advisers at the Federal Employment Agency’s International Placement Services (Zentrale Auslands- und Fachvermittlung, ZAV). In particular, the Service Center for Professional Recognition (Zentrale Servicestelle Berufsanerkennung) helped applicants have their formal qualifications recognised. “The Ministry established a sort of onboarding process for the recruited teachers, through which they could at the same time improve their German language skills, learn about the German school system and start working,” explains Lena Sundheimer, who works for EURES Germany’s National Coordination Office.

EURES Advisers helped candidates apply for financial support from the EURES Targeted Mobility Scheme programme and the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge, BAMF), both of which funded some of the language courses they undertook online before arriving.

Filling a local skills gap

The project helped address a shortage of teachers. Schools in the region have long been struggling to recruit younger staff in particular and trying to recruit teachers from abroad to fill the skills gap. Teachers for North Germany put in place the framework to do so. As the ZAV is part of the EURES network, EURES Advisers were well placed to find candidates from abroad. “The ZAV contacted different EURES services to find more candidates for the project,” Lena recalls. EURES Germany then worked with EURES Greece to run an online information event, through which several Greek candidates secured jobs.

When the project concluded in 2021, 17 teachers from Poland and Greece (13 and 4 teachers respectively) had taken up full-time teaching jobs in Germany. “We had a lot of applications and we are very happy to have employed 13 Polish teachers,” said Rita Gerlach-March from the Ministry of Education.

Aneta returns to teaching across the border

One successful applicant was Aneta Goch, who features in this video produced by the Federal Employment Agency. Aneta is Polish and studied German as a foreign language, before working in Poland as a primary school teacher and later for a bank.

Aneta has now returned to teaching – this time through the Teachers for North Germany project. As teachers earn more in Germany than in Poland, taking a job on the other side of the border allowed Aneta to return to the profession while helping her pay for her daughter’s university studies.

“I am happy to have found this job in Germany and I am looking forward to it,” Aneta said. “I love working with children and I think being a teacher was what I always wanted to do.”

Inspired by the project’s success, the ZAV has run campaigns to hire teachers from countries such as Hungary and Portugal. Local schools continue to look for teachers from abroad with a good knowledge of German, especially in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects.

If you are interested in working abroad, keep an eye on the EURES portal’s vacancies or contact a EURES Adviser for support.

Related links:

Teachers for North Germany

EURES Targeted Mobility Scheme

Video: Best Practice: Lehrkräfte für Mecklenburg-Vorpommern

EURES: Find a job in Europe

Contact a EURES Adviser

Read more:

European Job Days

Find EURES Advisers

Living and working conditions in EURES countries

EURES Jobs Database