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School child with mouth nose protection
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Dirk Kittelberger / imago images / Westend61
The teachers' union VBE still sees many open questions in the federal government's infection protection concept.
"There is still a lack of a comprehensive safety and hygiene concept, there are still no transparent step-by-step plans based on nationwide criteria," said the chairman of the Education and Training Association, Udo Beckmann, on Thursday in Berlin.
Health Minister Karl Lauterbach and Justice Minister Marco Buschmann presented their draft for a new infection protection law on Wednesday.
It provides for limited test requirements as well as a mask requirement - but leaves many decisions to the countries or local authorities and institutions.
School closures are therefore not possible in autumn and winter.
"The draft again contains gaps and open questions," said Beckmann.
However, their clarification is “essential for a forward-looking, clear and binding action at school and daycare”.
Otherwise conflicts are inevitable there.
Database »much too thin«
An assessment shared by Susanne Lin-Klitzing, Chair of the Association of Philologists.
"It can't be that the specific protective measures are negotiated and decided at the level of the daycare and school management," she told SPIEGEL.
The educational institutions need a legally secure framework for action - and ideally this should be defined by the Conference of Ministers of Education.
"I was hoping for a criteria-based catalog of measures with clear indicators," said Lin-Klitzing.
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So she wasn't happy with the design.
And she sees a second problem, says the chair of the philologists' association: the current database on which decisions are to be made is "much too thin."
Schools and society as a whole should therefore demand clear, meaningful data from politicians in order to be able to act responsibly in the fall.
The education and science trade union judges the draft law a bit more positively.
»Many measures will be helpful in the Corona autumn.
It is right to give the federal states the tools to protect children and young people as well as employees in day-care centers and schools," says Andreas Keller, Deputy Chairman of the GEW.
This includes the obligation to wear masks as well as the obligation to carry out tests wherever the infection process makes it necessary.
»Politics leaves day-care centers and schools alone«
At the same time, says Keller, there is also a substantial problem: »There are no limit values or linked step-by-step plans that the federal states have to adhere to.
Politicians leave the day-care centers and schools alone.« He therefore fears that there will be a nationwide patchwork of measures.
"Educational institutions need reliable and uniform step-by-step plans that specify exactly what measures must be taken from which limit values." At the same time, it is completely incomprehensible why wearing a mouth and nose protector in elementary schools should be categorically ruled out.
"We are once again heading towards a patchwork of undefined, sometimes vague and insufficient specifications," VBE boss Beckmann also fears.
It must not happen that in the end the pedagogical specialists and management at school and day care center have to make decisions and communicate restrictions for which they are not responsible.
Politicians should not shift responsibility again.
Federal Health Minister Lauterbach defended the government plans as a "relatively simple concept" in two stages.
"From October 1st, to put it simply, the mask requirement applies indoors everywhere," said the minister to the RTL broadcaster.
However, visitors to bars, restaurants or cafés could “take off the mask if you are freshly vaccinated or have just recovered”.
Prien demands quick school summit
"I don't hope that there will be a patchwork quilt," said Lauterbach on the program "RTL direct".
The federal government will work with the states so that they "use the maximum that we offer".
Meanwhile, the chair of the Conference of Ministers of Education, Karin Prien, has called for a national school summit.
All responsible ministers for health and for schools in the federal and state governments should agree on how to proceed, said the Schleswig-Holstein Minister of Education to the editorial network Germany (RND).
Rapid coordination with the federal states is now particularly important.
"The countries are still waiting for the invitation to a joint conference," criticized Prien.
Such a summit must now be scheduled immediately.
him/AFP