Corona and school: SPD Minister of Education criticizes the air filter debate

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"Difficult to explain why school operations should also depend on air filters": Air filter device in a Berlin high school

Photo: Bernd Friedel / imago images

For Ties Rabe, the SPD school senator in Hamburg, the dispute over the installation of air filters in as many classrooms as possible is a sham debate. Rabe, who is also spokesman for the education ministers of the SPD-led countries, referred to the extensive security measures already in place in schools: hygiene rules, mask requirements, test obligations, the possibility of vaccinations for employees and the requirement to ventilate rooms every 20 minutes.

"In no other area of ​​life are there such extensive safety measures as in schools," said Rabe of the German Press Agency.

"It is difficult to explain why, despite these measures, school operations should also depend on air filters that are by no means required in other areas of life with less strict protective measures - for example in retail, leisure activities or restaurants."

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• Corona in the classroom: Max Planck researchers develop inexpensive alternatives to air filtersBy Gerald Traufetter

• Corona strategy: Stiko boss questions mass tests for schoolchildren by Armin Himmelrath

The federal government recently started promoting the installation of permanent air filter systems in classrooms for children up to the age of twelve because they cannot yet be vaccinated.

Government representatives had referred to this program with a view to possible investments in the summer holidays.

School administrators and municipalities, on the other hand, had criticized that the program could not be used at all for many schools because of the tight funding guidelines.

Air filter program just window dressing?

Rabe now said that the funding would undoubtedly help the school building, but that it was window dressing when it came to Corona. "In order to install such stationary systems, all around 500,000 classrooms and teaching rooms would have to be extensively converted - including wall openings, plastering and masonry work, and the installation of electrical and piping systems." Even with the greatest effort, the installation in schools in Germany would be several Take years.

The effect of mobile air filters, which has been discussed again and again for months, is controversial.

The Federal Environment Agency initially only recommended the devices as a supplement for window ventilation.

In a guideline for school operation under corona conditions, medical associations, the Robert Koch Institute, educational and child protection associations had neither made a clear recommendation for nor against the devices.

Parents, on the other hand, keep asking for the installation.

more on the subject

• Air filters for schools: "After almost 16 months of pandemic, the schools are still in chaos"

• Corona protection in schools: There is chaos with the air filters.By Silke Fokken and Armin Himmelrath

The federal states deal with the situation very differently. While the Bavarian state government is putting its municipalities under pressure to equip all classrooms as quickly as possible, states such as Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia are much more cautious. And in Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, the state governments even

apply

the brakes in a targeted manner:

"

The recommendations of the Federal Environment Agency can be summed up as follows: The best air purifier is the open window," says the Ministry of Education in Erfurt, for example.

Ties Rabe therefore demands clear statements on the subject from the federal government.

Should the medical assessments of mobile air filters change, the federal government should also set up a corresponding funding program - even if the municipalities are actually responsible for equipping the school buildings.

him / dpa