A new schoolyear begins

This morning, when I took my bike to fetch some errands, it was extremely busy on the road. I pass by two schools on my way to the shops - a highschool and an elementary school + kindergarten. The road was packed with cars of parents, dropping off their offspring.

This always happens when the schools reopen after two months of vacation. The first day every parent wants to take his/her children to school. I just wonder what they do the next days...?

There is a shortage of teachers this schoolyear. More than 827 vacancies I heard on the news. Especially teacher for elementary school and teachers of French, Dutch and mathemathics. Also teachers of technical subjects are wanted (electricity, carpenting, ...)

The government needs to promote teaching. Nowadays, teachers don't get the respect they deserve anymore. No wonder that lots of young teachers quit after just one or two years in the classroom. Parents are more demanding than ever. In my days, you could give a students bad marks without a problem; their parents accepted this for a fact that their kid hadn't studied enough. But now they'll tell you you haven't taught him well.

Another fact about school is that our students aren't doing as well as before. Their results are worse than years ago. Especially their general knowledge is decreasing. Well, I've known this for a long time. They don't know anything about geography or history anymore. The capital of Egypt? Paris!!! But whan can you expect, when the government forbids to teach (in my case, as a teacher of languages) grammar or literature history? How can you give students a good knowledge if you can only tell them half?

It's clear something needs to be done, or education will become something you once heard of.  But how and what?