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In the pandemic, children and adolescents often had to work their way through school material
Photo: Guido Kirchner / dpa
At the end of the corona pandemic, more than a quarter of children and adolescents said they had “major learning deficits”, and a further 52 percent stated that they were “somewhat behind”.
This is the result of a representative Allensbach survey on behalf of the Telekom Foundation, which will be presented this Thursday and which SPIEGEL received in advance.
1071 pupils in grades 5 to 10 at general schools and 525 parents of children in this age group were surveyed.
In the survey, only a good third of the children and adolescents stated that these deficits caused them concern.
Around 44 percent say they are making efforts to catch up on the arrears - high school students in particular work on the material: with classmates, alone or with the support of siblings or parents.
Parents see schools as an obligation
However, the parents clearly (90 percent) see the school as having an obligation to close the knowledge gaps of the students.
For 36 percent, the responsibility rests with the child, for 33 percent with themselves.
Most schools comply with this requirement and offer support to catch up on missed course material.
55 percent of the pupils report that their school provides additional exercises with which they can study independently at home.
Another 41 percent receive digital learning opportunities.
Just under a quarter can also take advantage of additional learning opportunities during the holidays.
14 percent report that their school offers additional classes on Saturdays or afternoons.
Just under a fifth of children and adolescents do not know of any additional offers at the school.
The majority still draws a positive balance
Despite the self-attested learning deficits, the majority of children and adolescents draw a surprisingly positive balance of the school closings.
Fifty-eight percent said they had coped “well” or even “very well” with learning at home - although there are major differences between the different types of school.
more on the subject
Bremen school senator on education policy in the pandemic: "I have so much anger in my stomach" An interview by Miriam Olbrisch
Knowledge gaps after Corona: Money alone does not reduce learning backlogs A guest contribution by Markus Warnke
Billion tuition program: The help that will hopefully arrive by Christian Füller
While almost three quarters of those surveyed gave a positive balance among the high school students, almost half of the secondary school students answered that they had got along with distance learning "less well" or "not at all well". "This confirms the assumption that Corona has increased the imbalance between the better and worse learners to the detriment of the weaker ones," says Thomas de Maizière, chairman of the Telekom Foundation.
In the opinion of the pollsters, the learning gap at the end of the pandemic was only one side of the coin. The results suggested that children and young people had developed further in other respects. Around two thirds of those surveyed said that they had made progress in using computers or digital applications. More than half said that they could now organize themselves better and work out information themselves.