At the start of the conciliation procedure on a planned constitutional change education associations and municipalities have called for a rapid breakthrough.
„No one understands that the digital pact school will be pushed further into the long run,“ said the chairman of the Association for Education (VBE), Udo Beckmann, the German Press Agency in Berlin. The German Association of Cities also put pressure. Among other things, the federal government wants to change the Basic Law so that it can pay the federal states five billion euros for the planned greater digitization of schools. Education is actually a country thing.
Today, the Mediation Committee of the Bundestag and Bundesrat will meet for the first time during this parliamentary term. The Federal Council unanimously called it in December. The amendment to the Basic Law previously passed by the Bundestag had stopped the Länder for the time being.
The details of this planned federal-state cooperation are in a so-called digital pact already negotiated between the federal government and the federal states. On the one hand, the federal states are afraid of losing part of their power through the constitutional amendment. For not only is the implementation of the digital pact possible, but also the way for other federal aid to the countries to be freed. In addition, the federal government should be able to have a say in school quality according to its own plans.
In addition, the countries are bothered by the fact that they should pay half of the total amount for all future federal programs in their favor. However, this so-called 50-50 rule is not yet to apply to the digital pact.
Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder warned against giving the federal government more say in education policy. „We do not want a unified school from Berlin. Therefore, there must be no school law for the federal government via the digital pact, »said the CSU chairman of the newspapers of the Funke media group.
VBE boss Beckmann said with regard to the gigantic task of digitizing the school lessons: „The countries can not do without the federal money.“ Beyond the federal / Länder pact, the financing of digital teaching must be permanently ensured. „In fact, 2.5 billion euros would be needed every year.“
Beckmann said: „The requirement for the schools means: mediates media literacy – but their equipment remains so far medieval.“ Although there are individual flagship projects and modern equipped schools – but these are often dependent on sponsors.
The head of the German Philological Association, Susanne Lin-Klitzing, told the dpa: „If the federal and state governments want to remain credible, they must not put the agreement on the back burner.“ The 40,000 schools in Germany need planning security for up-to-date digital equipment.
The German Association of Cities called on the Bundestag and the Bundesrat to agree „very quickly“. „We have no more time to lose,“ said chief executive Helmut Dedy the newspapers of the spark media group. „In schools, digital education with tablets, WLAN and digital learning content must be taken for granted.“
The education union GEW demanded that the ban on federal / state cooperation in education generally be overturned. „The countries have to give up their obstruction and move. Preparing schools for the digital world is a task for the future and long overdue, „said the chairman Marlis Tepe of the“ Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung „.
Lin-Klitzing proposed an alternative way for the digital pact to succeed. „With the good will of all those involved, a state treaty could be a viable solution.“ This could be concluded specifically for this project – a change in the Basic Law would then not be necessary.
„It is of course necessary to have a clear regulation on financial transfers from the federal government to the states,“ she said. At the same time, federal transfers to support education should also ensure that „these benefits are demonstrably used in education“.
