Digital Pact School: After two and a half years, not even ten percent of the funds have arrived

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Tablets in the classroom: The Oberschule Gehrden is one of the leading schools in Germany when it comes to digital learning

Photo: Julian Stratenschulte / DPA

More than two years after the launch of the multi-billion dollar "Digital Pact School" funding program, states and municipalities have spent less than ten percent of the money originally provided, 423 million out of five billion euros.

In other words: not even every tenth euro has reached the schools so far.

After all, around 2.37 billion euros have already been approved.

According to the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), which presented the figures, the goal of having around half of the funding amount from the basic digital pact firmly planned by this point in time has “almost been achieved”.

Twice a year, on February 15th and August 15th, the federal states report to the federal government how much money from the Digital Pact for Schools has been spent or approved so far.

The funding program started at the end of 2019 after months of struggle - actually to expand the digital infrastructure of schools, for example by connecting to broadband Internet and WLAN hotspots.

The federal government wanted to invest five billion euros within five years, this part of the program is now known as the “Basic Digital Pact”.

The federal states together add another 500 million euros.

In order for the federal government to be able to support the states at all, the Basic Law was specially amended at the time.

In the course of the corona pandemic, the federal government increased the program again by a total of 1.5 billion euros.

Tablets and laptops for teachers, students and IT administrators in schools each account for 500 million euros of this.

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• Survey: Teachers complain about digital equipment in high schools

• Survey on digital teaching: Almost half of the teachers consider IT equipment to be insufficient

How quickly the money gets to Germany's schools varies greatly from region to region.

While Hamburg and Saxony have already planned well over 90 percent of their share from the basic digital pact and have already spent some of it, not a single euro has flowed out in numerous countries: in Saarland, in Brandenburg, in Schleswig-Holstein, Thuringia, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and North Rhine-Westphalia.

Only the Corona special program, with which digital devices can be bought for schoolchildren, was almost completely exhausted by all federal states as of December 31, 2021.

This is where 495 of the total of 500 million euros flowed out.

"Even if the digital pact is picking up speed, the numbers are below our expectations," comments Federal Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP), who took over the office in December.

"Further acceleration is urgently needed." The minister sees one reason for the sluggish outflow of funds in the complicated application procedures.

»Approved is not yet installed.

It will be some time before approved funds make digital lessons possible in schools.«

Karin Prien, CDU Minister of Education in Schleswig-Holstein and currently Chairwoman of the Conference of Ministers of Education (KMK), explained that "particular attention must be paid to minimizing the bureaucratic hurdles, especially for small school authorities." Because they often did not have sufficient and sufficient qualified staff to be able to apply for the funds quickly.

In the coalition agreement, the new federal government stated that it wanted to launch a "Digital Pact 2.0" that would run until 2030.

The federal, state and local governments are expected to make initial proposals for this in the first half of 2022.

olb