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Preparation for the Abi exams at school (symbolic image)
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Bernd Wüstneck / DPA
Germany's schools are in a state of emergency, but the Abitur exams should take place this school year according to the will of the 16 ministers of education.
So it provides for a joint decision on which the Standing Conference of Ministers of Education (KMK) agreed in a video link on Thursday.
Even if the schools should remain closed, exams could be taken in the rooms there.
For oral exams, the school ministers want to enable exams via video conference "in exceptional cases".
This does not only apply to high school graduates.
The federal states also want to guarantee that young people can obtain their secondary school leaving certificates, for example secondary school and secondary school leaving certificates.
However, it is restricted here: »depending on the infection process«.
The same applies to vocational schools: "Examinations should be carried out here, as far as the infection process allows."
Equivalent degrees
Either way, those who belong to the Corona year should not be left behind compared to others, according to the KMK: The degrees are "equivalent to those of earlier and later years and are mutually recognized".
So if you are doing your Abitur in Berlin, for example, you can continue to apply for a place in Bavaria, for example.
Despite the special conditions under which the material was taught, the qualification is valid nationwide.
The federal states should use the common pool of tasks for the Abi exams, it says in the paper, but the following is added as a restriction: »if there are no compelling reasons against this«.
Should the consequences of the pandemic worsen, the KMK will again decide "how the award of an equivalent high school diploma and mutual recognition can be guaranteed".
If in doubt, it would have to be improved.
Teachers Association: Overdue decision
A number of schoolchildren, parents and teachers in Germany had been waiting for weeks for such a signal from the ministerial group, warned and demanded it - especially since the first written Abi exams in Rhineland-Palatinate were already written in mid-January.
There are tens of thousands of students nationwide in the preparatory phase.
Dario Schramm, chairman of the Federal Schools Conference, had therefore repeatedly insisted on "clear announcements" and a "clear timetable".
This "shimmy from week to week needs an end".
The education and science union (GEW) had demanded an Abi without exams in the pandemic.
The Association for Education and Upbringing (VBE) was completely different: after the decision on Thursday, it spoke of an "overdue" but essentially correct decision.
Contrary to the prophecies of doom to cancel the Abitur exams, schoolchildren have a right to be examined, announced the chairman Udo Beckmann.
»Despite the pandemic, the students have prepared very intensively for the exams in recent months.
They have worked towards it all their school life.
That must be appreciated! "
Nevertheless, Beckmann believes that the extent to which the “pandemic conditions” could be taken into account must be examined.
The main thing here is to focus on the postponement of exams, to expand the central Abitur task pool and to design the premises safely.
Suggestions instead of binding agreements
However, the KMK decision does not provide for such specific, joint measures.
He also does not respond to demands from the student body to compensate for disadvantages.
According to their own claim, the politicians want to define a framework for the tests that "ensures comparability by safeguarding the standards, but creates scope to take the restrictions of the pandemic into account."
This leaves the ministers of education a lot of freedom.
The joint KMK resolution is reduced to the following suggestions in terms of essential questions about the final exams:
Postpone dates:
For fair framework conditions and to support the students, exam
dates
could be postponed to allow more study time.
For example, exam days that were previously intended as follow-up dates could be taken as the main dates.
Less examination material:
The number of class work or exams can be reduced.
Examination notes could be made more precise by setting priorities, for example.
More time, more choice:
It is also possible to have more examination questions to choose from and to extend the selection time or working time by half an hour.
Schools could also select the centrally set examination tasks.
According to the resolution, they should inform each other about how the federal states ultimately design these requirements in detail.
In principle, the appointment is a legally non-binding common framework.
School policy is a matter of the state.
Critics repeatedly urge the education ministers to proceed more uniformly, but in the pandemic they were often only able to agree on a minimal consensus - and so different rules already apply in the countries with a view to this year's final exams.
Berlin, for example, had rushed ahead and canceled the exams for the secondary school leaving certificate.
Countries such as Bavaria, Bremen, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Thuringia also want to do without it.
Bavaria had postponed the dates for the Abitur exams by around two weeks, while Lower Saxony had "additional dates for the written exams in German, mathematics and English."
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania announced on Thursday, among other things, that the examinee and school should be allowed to set the dates of the oral exams individually.
In addition, a decision should be made on special examination conditions for pupils who were exclusively or predominantly prepared for the Abitur examination in distance learning with a view to the individual case as part of a disadvantage compensation.
In other federal states, on the other hand, they are not yet ready.
In Berlin, for example, “adjustments” are still being worked out, which are to be presented “promptly”.
How the students can prepare for their exams is also different everywhere.
In Berlin there is not even uniform regulation within the capital as to whether, when and how often high school students have classroom instruction.
The school management can decide this in coordination with the parent representatives and the school supervisory board.
In Saxony, on the other hand, all final classes are taught in divided groups in the classroom, especially in the examination subjects.
Icon: The mirror
with material from AFP and dpa