The question of which state starts the long holidays and when is a political issue in Germany - for which there is a complicated set of rules. That question Hamburg and Berlin now. The two countries want to apply at the Conference of Ministers of Education (KMK) on Thursday and Friday to extend their summer vacation less in the future.
At the meeting, the 16 federal states should commit to the vacation dates for the years 2025 to 2030. And this time, the conference should not run as smoothly as it did when it was last terminated five years ago.
Because the current rules discriminate from the point of view of the city-states their students. Berlin Senator of Education Sandra Scheeres said jumps from a late holiday to an early vacation shortened the school year. This has a negative effect on the learning time of the students, the burden on the teachers and the period of the final exams.
Even in the face of a common pool of high school graduation tasks, some significant fluctuations in the length of the school half years are no longer appropriate, said Scheeres.
Generally speaking, the summer holidays should therefore only start from 1 July, the different dates of the countries should be closer together and the annual shifts should be as small as possible.
Recently, the so-called holiday corridor - ie the period in which the first countries start their summer holidays and the last countries sent their students back to class - stretched over 85 days.
This had two main reasons:
- Overcrowded trains and highways should be avoided. Associations such as the General German Automobile Club (ADAC) warn of even worse traffic jams in the summer months, when various families at the same time pack their bags and go on the highways. The staggered holiday start should equalize the problem.
- It is also about economic interests. The tourism industry would like to extend the holiday season in the summer as much as possible - and insists that always have any students in Germany between June and September.
The June holiday guests would be dropped at the request of Hamburg and Berlin so. This calls particularly the tourism strong countries like Schleswig-Holstein on the plan: "To a narrow holiday corridor in completely Germany could have negative effects on the tourism so important for our country, if the season would be significantly shorter thereby", said a speaker of the education ministry in Kiel.
Even Saxony-Anhalt Education Minister Marco Tullner (CDU) can recognize any advantages in the idea. The number of vacation days in total is uniformly regulated. "Of course, I expect all countries to show some flexibility and not just commit themselves to a model of their dreams," says Tullner.
That should turn out to be a side blow in the direction of Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg, which each year have summer holidays largely in the same period. The other countries are divided into groups, each having summer vacations at the same time - but at different times year after year.
North Rhine-Westphalia's Minister of Education Yvonne Gebauer (FDP) is more open to change: "Every law and regulation should be reviewed from time to time to ensure that it is appropriate and up-to-date, including the complicated summer holidays." Due to the long-term determination of the holiday plans but it will hardly come to a quick decisions.
Thuringia's education minister Helmut Holter (left) does not expect that. For him, it was important that the countries continue to vote by mutual agreement.
The desire for a peaceful debate about the politics of summer holidays is at least there.
