Corona and schools: presence? Yeah yeah But when and for whom?

In this respect, Britta Ernst is not to be envied.

The SPD education minister from Brandenburg will take over the office of KMK president for one year on Thursday - and in this role she has to bundle the polyphony and contradictions of the states.

The first days of 2021 already show that this is a mammoth task (“This is going on”).

Is there someone to blame for the fact that the school policies of the federal states are currently so different in dealing with Corona?

The situation is confusing, the expectations are in some cases absurdly high - and the prime ministers fool around with the specifications ("debate of the week").

The »Kleine Pause« team wishes you a good week, good health and successful teaching - no matter how you (have to) hold it at the moment.

Feedback & suggestions?

The team from »Kleine Pause«

Silke Fokken, Kristin Haug and Armin Himmelrath

Icon: enlarge Photo: Hans Punz / picture alliance / dpa

That's going on

1. The KMK's step-by-step plan

Monday:

The Standing Conference (KMK) adopt their three-point plan for returning to face-to-face teaching.

Tuesday:

Angela Merkel and the state bosses decide to convey this impression at least in the subsequent press conference, including nationwide school closings by the end of January.

Wednesday:

The first federal states announce the return for face-to-face teaching, at least for some classes - sometimes for January 18th, sometimes for January 25th, sometimes for February 1st and sometimes for February 8th.

And for the special needs schools in some cases as early as January 11th.

"The education ministers failed to make schools pandemic-proof - and thereby deprived children and young people of their right to education", writes colleague Tilmann Warnecke in his comment in the "Tagesspiegel" and accuses the education ministers of "refusing to work".

You can read about his outburst here. 

And then it started with distance learning after the Christmas holidays - and many servers were on their knees, as Dario Schramm from the national school student conference said in an interview with SPIEGEL.

Britta Ernst will take up her new position as President of the Conference of Ministers of Education on Thursday.

And has already made it clear in advance that the hope of planning security for school operations is currently a little exaggerated.

Meanwhile, there is tailwind for the new KMK boss and most of her colleagues from Paris: Andreas Schleicher, who is responsible for the Pisa studies at the OECD, believes that "face-to-face teaching is irreplaceable" and "very sensible".

The debate is and will remain exciting.

Anja Karliczek, the Federal Minister of Education, also spoke in SPIEGEL on the subject of face-to-face teaching.

You can find the interview with her here.

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Bodo Schackow / dpa

2. Exam questions

"I think we will not be able to guarantee the perfect, fair graduation this year because the differences are too great," said student representative Dario.

And demands: "The curriculum has to be shortened or grades have to be adjusted." And there are indeed education ministers who can certainly imagine this - such as Helmut Holter in Thuringia, who is currently having this checked for his federal state. 

Other countries, including Europe, are already further: Because exams in schools are currently not possible due to the corona crisis, Great Britain has canceled them.

Now the teachers should decide which final grades are justified. 

However, there are also the first tentative steps to change the examination requirements in this country: The first federal states - including Berlin, North Rhine-Westphalia, Hamburg, Thuringia, Bremen and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania - have announced that they will forego the exam exams for the intermediate degree and only hold the presentation exams.

How do you see it

How can fair final exams for the secondary school leaving certificate, for the Abitur or the vocational schools look like in the coming months?

Please write to us at kleinepause@newsletter.spiegel.de.

3. What else?

The thing with the masks

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Masks for all teachers, that sounds good.

North Rhine-Westphalia has announced this, as have other federal states.

And Baden-Württemberg has even started the distribution - and possibly scored a communicative own goal.

Apparently defective masks of questionable quality were issued.

There is currently a certain political irritation in Baden-Württemberg, after all, a new state government will be elected in a few weeks' time.

Perhaps it is therefore only logical that the mask dispute is now dividing the green-black state government.

Debate of the week

Schools open, schools closed - what do politics want?

What the heads of government decided on the school closings was apparently deliberately formulated with holes in it that almost anything is possible.

This annoys the Berlin education journalist Jan-Martin Wiarda. Among other things, he writes:

Why do the heads of government blink in the direction of “nationwide school closings” and turn off in the direction: “Everyone does what he thinks is right”?

Quite simply: Because many of them are simply not convinced that closed educational institutions, especially for younger children, are justified by the goal of containing the pandemic.

But because they also wanted to demonstrate unity and drive.

Or have been condemned to do so by the Chancellor.

As a result, however, the prime ministers chose the worst of all variants.

Part of the public thinks school openings are too risky and feels betrayed.

The other would like daycare centers and schools to be open, but please not because of such a stupid, half-hearted decision.

You can find the full comment here.

That's it for this time.

The “Small Break” team thanks you for your interest - see you next time!

Ideas, suggestions, feedback?

We look forward to receiving mail to kleinepause@newsletter.spiegel.de.

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