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"Schools should be the last thing that will be closed again across the board": Karin Prien, designated President of the Conference of Ministers of Education
Photo: Marcus Brandt / dpa
In view of the impending new corona wave, the education ministers of the federal states want to meet at short notice for a crisis summit next Wednesday.
The video conference will deal with the situation in schools in view of the rapid spread of Omikron.
This was announced by a spokesman for the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK) on Thursday after a digital meeting of the Presidium.
The next regular KMK meeting was originally planned for February 10th - long after the Prime Minister's Conference with Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), which was scheduled for January 7th.
As the spokesman went on to say, the KMK presidium, which includes six of the 16 state education ministers, has confirmed that it will continue to give top priority to face-to-face teaching in schools.
The country representatives had also determined at the presidium level "that all countries except Thuringia want to start in presence after the Christmas holidays," as the message goes on to say.
Professionals: Not a presence at any cost
Thuringia had announced, among other things, that the students should study from home on the first two days of school after the holidays.
The urgent application of a student who wanted to enforce face-to-face lessons was rejected on Thursday by the Weimar Higher Administrative Court as inadmissible.
"For schoolchildren, it remains the case that the first two days are organized at home," said a spokesman for the Ministry of Education.
From January 5th, the schools in Thuringia should then be able to decide for themselves whether they should continue to work in face-to-face, distance or alternating classes.
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Next Monday, the students in Berlin, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony will return to school after the holidays, on Tuesday in Saarland and on Wednesday in Hamburg. Due to the presumed dangers of the Corona variant Omikron, experts urged the KMK not to hold on to classroom teaching at any cost and to advise again on the current situation at short notice. So far, despite the impending fifth wave of pandemics, no extension of the Christmas holidays has been planned. Thuringia was the only federal state that deviated from it.
"The schools should be the last thing that will be closed again across the board," said the future KMK chairman, Karin Prien (CDU), again on Thursday.
The amended Infection Protection Act contained "no legal basis for nationwide school closings".
him / dpa
