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Teacher on the laptop (during school closings in April 2020)
Photo: Kay Nietfeld / dpa
Service laptops for all teachers until the end of the year, plus a data flat rate for schoolchildren for ten euros a month: With these promises, the federal and state governments wanted to get digitalization going in the classrooms at the school summit in the Chancellery in mid-August.
Now it is clear that rapid progress is currently not to be expected.
And the implementation is also different from what the education ministers announced in August and confirmed at a further education meeting in September.
This emerges from the response of the federal government to a small request from the FDP parliamentary group that SPIEGEL has received.
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Accordingly, it is unclear when the agreed 500 million euros for the "immediate equipment program for digital devices for teachers" will flow.
In any case, there can be no question of "immediately": the federal government and the states have "entered into negotiations that are currently ongoing," writes Thomas Rachel, State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Education, on the FDP request.
He doesn't have any answers to the question of when the federal states can count on the money and when the teachers should receive their service laptops.
"A poor certificate"
In view of the announcements, this is "sobering", says Katja Suding, deputy chairman of the FDP parliamentary group: "It is becoming more and more unlikely that the teachers' laptops will arrive at schools this year."
In view of the increasing number of Corona-related schools closed, this is "a sign of poverty" for Education Minister Anja Karliczek (CDU).
On Wednesday it became known that around 300,000 school children and around 30,000 teachers are currently in quarantine, and the trend is rising.
In view of this development, a "teaching disaster" threatens in the next few weeks, fears Suding.
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The Minister of Education does not cut a good figure with the planned flat rate education for schoolchildren.
In September Karliczek had promised that there would be a data flat rate for all students - for ten euros a month.
This project has meanwhile been slimmed down, now only those children who borrow a device for digital lessons from their school should get cheap access.
Incidentally, the federal government does not conclude any corresponding contracts with the telecommunications companies, according to the answer from the Federal Ministry of Education.
"Anja Karliczek abandons children from socially disadvantaged families," says Katja Suding.
The limitation of the offer to selected children is "an attack on equal opportunities".
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