Minister Schopper took a typewriting course at the VHS as a student.
In the future, it should also be possible to learn to type online.
After Corona, even in adult education centers, little is as it was before.
Stuttgart - The adult education centers in the southwest want to use the digital boost from the Corona crisis and increasingly gear their offer to online courses in the future.
The state wants to support this goal and is giving 6.3 million euros for digital equipment and the further training of teachers.
"The adult education centers will be analog-digital," announced Fritz Kuhn, chairman of the VHS association for eight years, on Thursday in Stuttgart.
It should be a mixture of classic courses and digital formats.
“We don't have a target number,” explained Kuhn.
The mix of online and presence must be tried out in practice.
Education Minister Theresa Schopper (Greens) was confident that the around 160 adult education centers in the state could thus also become attractive for new groups.
The director of the VHS Stuttgart, Dagmar Mikasch-Köthner, said that during the Corona lockdown, more and more courses were gradually being relocated to the home office.
“We are brave, but also started a little unprepared,” she admitted.
Before Corona, around three percent of the courses were held online across the country.
In the spring of this year it was then about every second course.
Like Kuhn, she emphasized that the main thing was to remove barriers to access to the adult education center.
The former mayor of Stuttgart said it was absolutely clear that face-to-face courses also have an important social component for many participants.
And yet: "The adult education centers will change in their work."
With its public educational mandate, the Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs sees the VHS as having an obligation “to help shape change in society and to actively counteract a digital divide in society”.
For this, the adult education centers would have to develop themselves further: in their content, offer formats and their own structure.
In order to promote this, the ministry wants to support four “digital pilot adult education centers” with up to 720,000 euros.
These institutions should each look for at least two more to cooperate with.
Schopper said: "With this project we are breaking new ground nationwide and will take on a pioneering role in digitization in continuing education."
The country recently promised Corona aid amounting to 12 million euros for the VHS suffering from Corona. Since face-to-face lessons had not been possible since December, high losses had occurred. (dpa / lsw)