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Air filter in a primary school (archive picture)
Photo: Sven Hoppe / dpa
The installation of air filters in the classrooms is progressing too slowly and too much time has been wasted due to the slow digitization process: The President of the North Rhine-Westphalian Teachers' Association, Andreas Bartsch, is calling on the state government with a view to the end of the summer holidays more effort on.
»We now have to create all the prerequisites so that we don't go back to alternating and distance learning.
Because that would be damage that we can no longer make up in the end, "says Bartsch of the newspaper," Rheinische Post ".
"Now we finally need the broad social awareness that something has to change massively very quickly."
On this Monday, classes for children and young people in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Schleswig-Holstein begin after the summer vacation.
In Hamburg, school starts again on Thursday.
All three federal states start with face-to-face teaching, but in Hamburg the requirement to attend is suspended for the time being.
For example, students who are at increased health risk or who do not want to be tested can continue to study at home.
How things continue will depend on the development of the corona numbers - and they are currently rising steadily, albeit at a low level. Neither parent nor teacher representatives have any illusions. "In the foreseeable future there will also be alternating and distance teaching in the new school year," says Sabrina Wetzel from the Board of Directors of the Federal Parents' Council. The President of the German Teachers' Association, Heinz-Peter Meidinger, emphasizes: "We will have to reckon with a further increase in the number of infections and will therefore need safety precautions for months."
How useful air purification systems are - this is still a matter of debate. The federal funding criteria are very strict, notes Schleswig-Holstein's Minister Karin Prien (CDU). Accordingly, only rooms that cannot be ventilated or poorly ventilated come into question. This is also criticized by teacher representative Meidinger, for whom the federal program came too late. He fears that of 650,000 classrooms in Germany at the start of school, at most one in ten will be equipped with mobile room air filters.
Parents representative Wetzel warns against too high hopes that it will not work without masks, regular ventilation and compliance with hygiene rules. She also sees a need to catch up when it comes to digitization: "Unfortunately, the supply of schoolchildren with digital devices is not yet as advanced as it should be," she says, referring to the entire country. Not all of the funds have been accessed by a long way and there is still a lack of WiFi in some schools. For teachers there is a need for compulsory further training in digital distance teaching.
Meidinger reports: "The teachers have become significantly better at handling video conferences and digital tools." However, he complains that almost half of the schools still do not have a fast Internet.
All in all, we are a little further today than in summer 2020. "Compared to the situation a year ago, we now have more instruments such as rapid tests to increase safety in schools." Decide school closings.
"Some schools have very good safeguards, others don't - that should play a role."
kha / Reuters / dpa
