German Central Pedagogical Institute
The German Central Pedagogical Institute (DPZI) was the central non-university research institution in the field of education and schooling in the GDR from 1949 to 1970.
The DPZI was directly connected to the Ministry for National Education (MfV). His functions lay primarily in the development of curricula, the training of young academics, the preparation of didactic-theoretical materials, the management and implementation of empirical studies, in educational history and psychological research as well as in teacher training through to theoretical preparatory work in connection with the preparation of bills in education.
history
A forerunner was the Central Institute for Education and Teaching , founded in 1915 . From 1946, Karl Sothmann (1895–1993) developed the concept of a new opening for the Soviet occupation zone, and Paul Wandel , who later became the first national education minister , was still thinking in 1947 of moving to the Academy of Sciences . However, the institute was to become less scientifically and more politically effective, so that in 1949 the focus was on the training of new teachers and lecturers. (Training department) In addition, there was the demand for new research that should turn the “democratic school” and pedagogy into a useful force for the socialist society. (Theory and methodology departments) The short-term founding rector and actual planner Hans Siebert joined the ministry in 1950. Else Zaisser was director until appointment as state secretary , department head and from 1951 director Werner Dorst , Werner Uhlmann headed theory from 1952, Sothmann headed the methodology department until 1952, whereupon Emil Hruschka succeeded him. In 1952 a fourth distance learning department was set up. In addition to the headquarters, the institute had six branches in the federal states and East Berlin. Overall, the structure, tasks and people often changed at the beginning, also because the political guidelines could hardly be implemented in practice. The uncertainties about the future political course created by the uprising of June 17, 1953 prevented a clarification. So one vacillated between adopting Soviet pedagogy and orienting itself towards German educational traditions. The leadership followed the various changes of direction between 1953 and 1958, until Ulbricht prevailed with a criticism of anti-Marxist revisionism , Minister Fritz Lange and State Secretary Hans-Joachim Laabs lost their offices at the end of 1958, the latter was followed by Margot Honecker , who from then on controlled the DPZI. The institute had already been cleaned up beforehand, with Director Dorst losing his position in July 1958.
With the educational reform of 1959 , a new key issue was set by the MfV; Hans Kaiser became the new director until 1961 . After his appointment as State Secretary, Gerhart Neuner followed in May 1961 , who stayed until 1970 and 1989 respectively. With the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the subjects had to be changed to justify the new situation, especially civics . Furthermore, the polytechnical education had to be developed, which Heinz Frankiewicz was given. In 1965 the second law on the unified socialist education system came into force, for which a lot of preparatory and follow-up work had to be provided. Based on the economic reform efforts of the 1960s, the MfV decided to merge three subordinate institutes for cost reasons: DPZI, German Central Institute for Teaching Aids (DZL) and German Institute for Vocational Education and Training (DIfB). At the end of the 1960s and when the APW was founded, the DPZI functioned formally as the leading educational research institute of the GDR, but in principle remained a subordinate administrative institution. Since the influence on educational science and research had been trimmed to a minimum, its status as an independent, self-determined research institute remained more than weak.
In 1970 the institute was dissolved and converted into the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the GDR (APW), of which Gerhart Neuner remained as director. The DPZI had the right to award doctorates since 1963 , regardless of the universities.
literature
- Gerhart Neuner : Between science and politics: a review from a life-history perspective . Böhlau, Cologne et al. 1996, ISBN 3-412-06296-0 .
- Nicole Zabel: On the history of the German Central Pedagogical Institute of the GDR. An institutional history study , Diss. Chemnitz 2009 Zabel 2009 pdf