Friday July 30th 2021
Baerbock presents paper
Greens call for “national education offensive”
The Greens want to set accents in education policy in the election campaign. According to this, more money should flow for school attendants and social workers, poorer federal states should be given more support. Chancellor candidate Baerbock demands: In the new school year schools are only allowed to close as the “very last”.
The Greens have called for an improvement in the corona protective measures in schools to prevent further closings. The new school year must be “crisis-proof”, said Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock at the presentation of a Green position paper for a “national education offensive”. In it, the Greens also fundamentally demand more fairness in education through a restructuring of state funding and an education summit by the federal government, states and municipalities after the federal election.
At the next meeting of the prime ministers with Chancellor Angela Merkel on August 10, there must be a “binding promise” that schools will be closed as the “very last thing”, said Baerbock. Children don’t just need schools to learn. In their position paper, the Greens called for schools and daycare centers to be made “as safe as possible” with ventilation concepts, air filters, test strategies and masks.
Greens are calling for a new education and participation law
In addition, the Greens want to improve the chances for all children after the federal election with a “national education offensive” by restructuring the state funding. “Even before the corona pandemic, our education system had a justice problem,” says the Green Paper. The pandemic has exacerbated and manifested this inequality. It is the task of politics to do better in the future, said Baerbock. The turning point caused by the pandemic must be used to strengthen education together with the countries.
Among other things, the Greens propose a new education and participation law. Schools with a share of more than 20 percent of students who are dependent on special funding should automatically get more money from the system, in which billions of euros trickled away. The additional money should therefore be invested among other things for other school attendants, social workers “and other educational specialists”. “Poor municipalities, which have hardly any administrative staff left, are still unable to use the money they are entitled to,” the paper says. Pupils who need more support should also be given more support.
According to studies, the performance of German students strongly depends on their social background. “In hardly any other country are the parental home and the zip code as decisive for educational success as in Germany,” says the paper. “And now we see how the corona pandemic exacerbates and manifests this inequality.”
Education Union: Politics dawdled
Baerbock said the distribution of funds in education via the so-called Königstein key must be reformed. Poor countries like Bremen would receive too little funding, rich countries like Bavaria too much. “We want federal funds in the future to reach those who need it most,” says the paper. The Greens are also pushing for the digitization of schools to be pushed ahead. A “Federal Agency for Digital Education” should be founded for this purpose.
The education union GEW accused the countries of a lack of preparation with a view to the new school year and the increasing number of corona infections. “The schools did everything during the holidays, but they are still not well enough prepared to deal with the pandemic,” said GEW chairman Maike Finnern of the “Rheinische Post”. Politicians have “wasted too much time”.
Finnern criticized that many classrooms could still not be properly ventilated. “The federal government and now some states are finally investing in air filters, but the time until autumn is running out,” said the GEW chairwoman of the newspaper. In addition, the nationwide funding is limited to the classrooms of children and young people up to the age of twelve. “That is not enough as the high numbers particularly affect teenagers and young adults,” she added.
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