Accompanied by massive criticism, she went online on Friday, now the evaluation app "learning victory" has been temporarily switched off. 17-year-old founder Benjamin Hadrigan was confronted with a "flood of hate e-mails" that "are not reasonable for a student in quantity or content," his press office said.
"We have indeed expected criticism - but not to the extent and with such incriminating news," it said from the press office on. The app allowed students to rate their German and Austrian schools and teachers anonymously and publicly. For this, users only had to register with a telephone number. Subsequently, they were able to award up to five stars in a total of eight categories - including fairness, respect, preparation and assertiveness.
The teachers were listed with their full names, they could not comment on their reviews. There were no checks on whether the evaluators actually go to the schools. However, each user could only post ratings for a single school.
70,000 downloads on a weekend
According to the press office, "learning victory" was downloaded more than 70,000 times over the weekend. By Monday noon, over 16,000 ratings had been received for schools, and just under 130,000 for teachers. Schools received an average of 3.88 stars, teachers 3.96 stars - that's about the grade "good".
Austrian and German unions had strongly criticized the concept of "learning victory". "Developing a feedback culture in schools is crucial for improving the quality of teaching," said Klaus Zierer, educational scientist at the University of Augsburg, SPIEGEL. "A public assessment like this is counterproductive from a scientific perspective." It could come "somebody" and publish a rating. Healthy feedback, however, live on being an "invitation to conversation," Zierer says. "In the app there is a reduction to personality traits, with class quality has nothing to do."
Georg Hochmuth / APA / DPA
App founder Benjamin Hadrigan
Paul Kimberger, chairman of the Austrian union compulsory school teachers had announced that he wanted to prevent the app by all legal means. He has concerns about privacy rights and privacy. The Trade Union for Education and Science (GEW) rejects public rating portals such as "learning victory": The app destroys the relationship between teachers and their students and was "not suitable to promote school development," said Ilka Hoffmann, education expert GEW.
App should go online again
The press office of the Viennese founder had already stated that they wanted to enter into dialogue with the trade unions. The app should definitely go online again, but you want to develop a strategy for the attacks. The app founder Hadrigan himself did not want to comment for the time being.
