Gymnasium associations on the implementation of the digital pact: "Well meant, but badly done"

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Laptops and tablets in the classroom: »The digital pact has revealed a wound that has always existed in schools«

Photo: Marijan Murat / dpa

A good three years after the start of the Digital Pact for Schools, school administrations at grammar schools are disappointed with the implementation.

The application process is still too complicated.

This was the result of a survey of 356 school principals at grammar schools in eight federal states, which the German Philologists' Association carried out in cooperation with the federal directors' conference of grammar schools.

80 percent of those surveyed stated that the procedure had not been simplified.

"The digital pact has revealed a wound that has always existed in schools," said Arnd Niedermöller, chairman of the federal directors' conference.

The school administrations would be crushed between the many responsible actors from the school authorities to the municipalities, the federal state and the federal government.

It is not enough to simply make money available, those affected must be given more thought in the implementation.

"The communities do not see money from the federal government as a blessing, but as additional work for which they have no human resources," says Niedermöller.

»The digital pact is well intentioned, but badly done.«

According to the survey, almost ten percent of high schools have not yet received any funds from the package with which the federal government intends to pour 6.5 billion euros into the technical upgrade of schools over a period of five years.

20 percent of head teachers state that not all teachers at their school have received a digital device.

It looks even worse when it comes to the equipment for trainee teachers: 44 percent of those surveyed stated that their trainee teachers had not yet received any equipment.

There is also a need to catch up when it comes to IT support: 14 percent of those surveyed stated that only teachers are still responsible for IT maintenance at their schools.

Almost 85 percent of the school administrations received additional help from professional external service providers.

Only five of the 356 headmasters surveyed were able to say that only professional external IT service providers are used at their schools.

34 percent of the school administrations stated that there was no stable data connection available at their school, almost half described the data connection as insufficient.

Gymnasiums perform relatively well

However, the survey, in which more than ten percent of the management took part, based on the nationwide number of high schools, shows that things are progressing in terms of digitization - and that the high schools are doing relatively well.

Because according to the latest figures available on the digital pact, only around 20,000 schools nationwide benefited from the digital pact - that is about half of all schools in Germany.

"The digital pact is picking up speed, but the pace is not yet right," said Federal Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger in September when the figures on the status of implementation were published.

The federal states report the data to the ministry every six months.

"That's an increase of 25 percent compared to six months ago," says Stark-Watzinger.

The most successful were two special programs that the federal and state governments had decided in the wake of the corona pandemic: In the immediate equipment program for the purchase of loan devices for schoolchildren, 495 million euros were already drawn from the 500 million euros available in the summer for the purchase of Rental devices for teachers therefore flowed from almost 483 million euros of the available 500 million euros.

The additional program for administrators, on the other hand, ran slowly, with around 18 million of the available 500 million euros being accessed by the summer

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