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Because of the corona pandemic, Germany's universities have been closed for more than a year (symbol image)
Photo: Patrick Pleul / picture alliance / dpa
The ink under the new Infection Protection Act, the “Federal Emergency Brake”, has hardly dried, so it has to be touched up.
This emerges from a previously unpublished written question from the Greens MP Kai Gehring to the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, which SPIEGEL has received.
Previously, the science ministers of the federal states had complained in a letter to Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn and Education Minister Anja Karliczek (both CDU) and demanded improvements for the universities.
The reason: Angela Merkel and the prime ministers had simply equated university operations with schools.
According to this, Germany's universities should have offered alternating classes on three consecutive days with a seven-day incidence of over 100.
Rework decided
From a value of 165, face-to-face teaching would be prohibited from the day after next.
"The model is aimed at class groups and is completely unsuitable for universities," complained the President of the University Rectors' Conference, Peter-André Alt. Hamburg's Senator for Science, Katharina Fegebank, described the procedure as "unfortunate."
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Students in the corona crisis: Dear politics, why are you ignoring us? A cry for help from Lukas Kissel
State regulations for schools: Where the federal emergency brake applies - and where it is ignoredBy Silke Fokken
The Federal Cabinet has now given in and decided on a »formulation aid« with regulations for the universities.
It states, among other things, that universities are excluded from alternating courses.
"Practical training phases", for example in laboratories or in hospitals, should continue to take place if those involved are tested regularly.
"For Education Minister Karliczek, universities and students have remained alien worlds," says Kai Gehring, university policy spokesman for the Greens in the Bundestag.
"The unworldly assumption that universities, like schools, should offer alternating courses must now be corrected."
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