Schools in the Corona crisis: Summit with Angela Merkel hardly yields results

The announcement was accompanied by an admission: When everyday school life had to be changed to learn at home overnight at the start of the corona pandemic, it became clear how important digital education is, but also what is still not working, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on her video podcast over the weekend. “That is why we have to press ahead with the digitization of schools at full speed. We need it as an indispensable complement to classroom teaching.”

For this offensive, Merkel invited the Minister of Education Anja Karliczek (CDU), the leader of the SPD Saskia Esken and the ministers of education of the federal states to the Office of the Chancellor for Monday evening, the first meeting of this gauge since schools closed so abruptly in March. In addition to digitization, hygiene concepts in schools were also on the agenda.

Education unions, parents and representatives of the countries, as well as the opposition, hoped that the meeting would lead to advances in the areas of teacher training, service equipment for teachers, broadband connections in schools and ventilation systems. for classrooms. Because although the responsibility rests with the federal states, the meeting was seen as a strong signal: “In these extraordinary times, it is a matter of doing everything together to ensure that children and young people are not the losers of the pandemic,” Merkel said.

The seven points: already known

Due to the federal system, school policy varied repeatedly from country to country, especially during the crown crisis; now summit participants must be judged on whether they deliver more than token policies and declarations of intent.

But the summit did not convey the “high pressure” evoked by Merkel. Government spokesman Steffen Seibert only announced after the conversation that “the story lines had been identified.” However, the seven named points are already known. These include expanding high-speed Internet for schools, equipping teachers with work laptops, and co-funding IT administrators. It has long been clear to everyone involved that something has to happen.

After the summit, KMK President Stefanie Hubig praised the “willingness of the federal government to allow the acquisition of end devices for teachers this year.” But the federal government’s promise to invest in equipping teaching staff was the result of a small meeting with the Chancellor in August.

In addition, a fundamental problem remains: money alone does not help compensate for the failures of digitization. The federal government has already made around five billion euros available through the Digital School Pact. But implementation in the federal states is extremely slow. According to a small request from the FDP, some 15 million euros had been requested by the middle of the year. Hubig told SPIEGEL that things are “really starting.” After all, funding would only be approved if schools submitted the appropriate concepts and applications. And at the beginning of the pandemic, many would have had other concerns at first. But Germany has a lot to catch up on in an international comparison.

It was equally difficult at first with the additional 500 million euros the federal government promised schools in April for “instant teams” with laptops for distance education. Often months, it takes months before the devices are actually available. In Thuringia, for example, most applications were only approved in early September, and also in Rhineland-Palatinate, the formalities had only been cleared up for less than half of the budget planned at that time. In addition, there are delivery times, configuration of operating systems, licensing problems and data protection regulations. As a result, many schools are not yet equipped to return to distance education.

The same applies in autumn: the presence operation comes first

However, in principle, the goal remains face-to-face learning rather than distance education. “The federal and state governments are jointly determined to prevent schools from being closed again across the board if possible,” government spokesman Seibert said Monday night.

For this reason, the Federal Minister of Education, Anja Karliczek, had already appealed to the population before the summit to adhere to hygiene regulations. “As a result of their behavior, society has great control over how school operations will develop in the coming months,” she told the dpa news agency.

Teacher unions also saw the responsibility of providing schools with proper hygiene concepts for the fall in politics. In particular, the questions of how ventilation should work in the fall and whether air filters are used should be clarified uniformly across the country, demanded the Education and Science Union (GEW), the Association for Education and Parenting ( VBE) and the Federal Council of Parents (BER). “The cost of using the devices should not be a knockout criterion. If companies save billions of dollars, the future of this country, teachers, school children and their parents should be worth at least the same to us,” he said. President.