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Math teacher on a laptop (in Ravensburg, Baden-Württemberg): »Unrealistic and absurd«
Photo:
Felix Kästle / dpa
The federal-state agreement on the acquisition of service laptops for teachers has been in force for a few days.
The federal government is making 500 million euros available for this in addition to the digital pact.
But the Association of Education and Upbringing (VBE) considers the program to be poorly thought out: There is too little money for the devices - and the planned distribution is not practical in everyday school life, says VBE digital expert Oliver Hintzen.
For the federal state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, where Hintzen is also the deputy VBE state chairman, he has calculated the equipment program for service laptops.
According to our calculations, 650 euros are made available for each full teacher, "says Hintzen:" That is an extremely tight budget. "
In addition to the laptop, software, maintenance and insurance would also have to be paid for with it: “The devices are supposed to be the egg-laying pig.
If you deduct the licenses and administration from the funding, there isn't much money left for the actual device. «In Baden-Württemberg, 65 million euros are to be spent on teachers' laptops.
But that is only a lot of money at first glance, but hardly anything arrives at the individual teacher.
In contrast, the Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs in Stuttgart emphasized in response to a request from SPIEGEL that the funds from the federal government are “basically subsidies”: “They do not replace the investments made by the school authorities, who are originally responsible for the equipment of the schools, but complement them. “In Baden-Württemberg, the 65 million euros from the federal program would be distributed among the school authorities - that is, as a rule, the cities and communities - according to a certain formula.
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But it is precisely this key, says VBE man Hintzen, that is the problem.
The distribution is based on full-time equivalents - that is, according to how many 100 percent positions there are for teachers on site.
"Over half of the teachers in Baden-Württemberg are employed part-time," says Oliver Hintzen: "Depending on the scope of employment, several of these teachers have to share a laptop."
It is completely clear that the calculation of the required devices based on theoretical full-time positions cannot work, says the teacher representative: "Chaos is inevitable." Teachers sharing devices is just as "unrealistic and absurd as three craftsmen on three different construction sites should share a circular saw «.
The Stuttgart Ministry of Culture considers this to be scaremongering.
The warning about shared service laptops is "very shortened and therefore not correct."
Because the rental equipment is not distributed according to the number of hours a teacher has, but according to actual needs.
There are also other funding pots for loan equipment from both the federal government and the state.
However, the shared use of individual devices by several teachers is "basically possible," a spokesman continued: "This option can be quite useful in certain cases."
Pool devices that teachers use at school while they continue to work on a private device at home are conceivable.
It is also possible for teachers at teacher workstations in the school to share equipment - but a decision has to be made on site in the schools.
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