Before Christmas: Will compulsory attendance be suspended?

ACompulsory schooling cannot be lifted, as virologist Christian Drosten recently requested. Education ministers are not refusing to abolish compulsory attendance, but they want to keep compulsory schooling and do not want to extend the Christmas holidays. Instead, face-to-face classes could be canceled “to relax the situation,” said the chairwoman of the Conference of Education Ministers, Stefanie Hubig (SPD) from Rhineland-Palatinate, referring to alternative models and distance learning. However, distance lessons should be as short as possible and, if possible, not longer than two weeks after the holidays.

Education ministers do not have to decide on a strict lockdown. His reference to this was enough to accuse the Education and Parenting Association (VBE) that the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK) seemed “paralyzed” at the upcoming Prime Minister’s Conference. Education ministers, who completed more than 100 conference calls and switching conferences in the year of the pandemic and “found a new way of working,” as they put it, called on the federal and state governments to examine all areas of the life as much as possible when deciding on restrictions on public life take. It should not be a solution to close schools and nurseries alone.

“No virus free bubbles”

Then young people frolicked in shopping malls, added Hamburg school senator Ties Rabe, the coordinator of the Social Democratic-led countries. Rabe also noted that if the schools were closed, their reopening should also be considered. Schools would need rapid tests to stay in control when returning to classroom teaching. Hessian culture minister Alexander Lorz (CDU), the new coordinator of the union-led countries, said schools “are not virus-free bubbles”, but neither are they “accelerators of fire or drivers of the pandemic.” Therefore, no one should be under the illusion that school closings are “the decisive adjusting screw” to combat the pandemic if shopping malls remain open.

Shortly afterwards, Schleswig-Holstein Education Minister Karin Prien (CDU) announced that she would be moving from eighth grade to distance education starting Monday. For students in grades 1-7, face-to-face lessons are planned, but parents can take their children off leave at any time, thereby suspending the attendance requirement. Prien asked employers to help parents get their children out of school early so they could stay home. The Berlin school authority reported a decrease in the number of infections in schools. School Senator Sandra Scheeres (SPD) said the peak was reached after the fall break.

New president of the Conference of Ministers of Education

For next year, the Conference of Education Ministers has elected Brandenburg Education Minister Britta Ernst (SPD) as its President for 2021. In addition, the education ministers have presented teacher demand forecasts. After that, there is a shortage of candidates for professional subjects in upper secondary education and for teaching positions with special needs. In primary education, an annual shortage of 1,700 teachers is forecast on average until 2025, but then a growing glut of up to 2,240 teachers in 2030. There are continuing bottlenecks in teaching positions for all or individual types of schools in lower secondary level I. In the high school area, an oversupply of teachers is expected.