Digital pact

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With the Digitalpakt (officially DigitalPakt Schule ), the German Federal Government and the German Bundestag announced their intention in 2018 to promote digitization in general education schools with 5 billion euros . On March 15, 2019, after the Bundestag, the Federal Council approved the amendment to Article 104c of the Basic Law , which finally passed the digital pact . On May 17, 2019, the “Administrative Agreement DigitalPact School 2019 to 2024” finally came into force for the Federal Republic of Germany after being signed by all countries and Anja Karliczek .

If you convert the approved total of 5 billion euros to the approximately 40,000 schools in Germany, an average of 120,000 euros is allocated to the individual institution. In the start-up phase, only relatively few funds were called up or approved until the beginning of 2020.

Amendment to the Basic Law as the basis for implementation

An amendment to the Basic Law was necessary for the implementation of the digital pact because, unlike in the past under National Socialism and in the GDR , education policy is a state matter (" educational sovereignty ") and not a federal matter because of the current prohibition of interference . For the amendment of Article 104c of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany , there was a large majority across all parties in the Bundestag on November 29, 2018, with 580 MPs voting for and 87 against; there were three abstentions. The Parliament agreed on the following wording:

“ To ensure the quality and efficiency of the education system, the federal government can grant the federal states financial aid for nationally significant investments as well as associated special direct costs for the federal states and municipalities (municipal associations) in the area of ​​municipal educational infrastructure. Art. 104b paragraph 2 sentences 1 to 5 and paragraph 3 apply accordingly. "

- German Bundestag

After the amendment to the Basic Law was initially rejected at the meeting of the Federal Council on December 14th - mainly because the states were supposed to co-finance half of the federal programs, which poorer states in particular were unable to do - this regulation was changed in the mediation committee in such a way that "The federal funds are provided in addition to the federal states' own funds." According to this, the Federal Council also approved the aforementioned amendment to the Basic Law on March 15, 2019.

Implementation problems in the start-up phase

By mid-August 2019, only 9 out of 16 federal states had published the necessary funding guidelines; the outflow of funds is thereby inhibited. In January 2020, seven months after the start of the digital pact, the 16 federal states had only called up 20 million from the five billion package. The reason given is that many schools have not yet submitted their media concepts, a basic requirement for being able to apply for funds at all. In addition, numerous schools are still examining their current information technology equipment in order to determine their needs.

Hesse, Schleswig-Holstein, Saxony-Anhalt and Saarland have not yet approved a single project from the Digital Pact funding pot at the beginning of 2020. When it comes to accessing digital pact finance, Saxony was initially at the top with 18 approved applications and a financing volume of 8.4 million euros, ahead of Hamburg with 7 million, Baden-Württemberg with 1.3 million and Lower Saxony with 1 million euros.

In some municipalities, the expected additional costs are put in relation to the prospective digital package funds with concern. In Zwickau, it is officially calculated that around a fifth of the digital pact inflows would be incurred as additional expense, because the fixed amounts provided in the funding guidelines for servers, end devices or interactive boards, for example, only partially correspond to the current market situation. Further annual additional burdens could arise for the municipalities from necessary maintenance and the financing of specialists for IT support.

Demand for accelerated implementation in the corona crisis

In view of the school closings in March 2020 due to the Corona crisis, Dieter Dohmen and Klaus Hurrelmann are calling for the loss of lessons to be compensated as best as possible through digitally communicated learning offers and tasks. In the given situation, students and teachers should work at home if possible: those who are being taught in homework, the teaching staff in the home office. However, at most five to ten percent of schools in Germany have so far been able to meet this requirement in a desirable way. In this country, too little has been done for this since the beginning of the millennium. The digital pact introduced for the catch-up and catch-up process suffers from inadequate financial resources and, due to an excessively bureaucratic application process, from insufficient outflow of even the available funds. "In particular, the requirement that the school must present a finished media concept in order to be able to receive funding is simply counterproductive," emphasize Dohmen and Hurrelmann. “The application process should now be simplified and standardized immediately - across national borders. If necessary, the authorities and schools must be provided with professional agencies. ”The cooperation between teachers and parents must also be intensified, especially in view of the special situation in the Corona crisis. School administrators and teachers needed training to expand and professionalise parenting work and communication with parents.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Interesting facts about the DigitalPakt Schule. Federal Ministry of Education and Research , July 11, 2018, accessed on December 16, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Administrative agreement DigitalPakt Schule 2019 to 2024. Accessed on September 5, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Der Tagesspiegel : Digital Pact Billions on Hold. The federal government spends a lot of money on WiFi and end devices in schools. But so far only a fraction of the funds have been used. January 23, 2020, p. 20.
  4. ↑ a b Digital Pact: Bundestag votes for constitutional amendment. Zeit Online , November 29, 2018, accessed December 5, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Dispute between the federal government and the states: Powerful digital pact. tagesschau.de , December 6, 2018, accessed December 6, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Federal Council press release of March 1, 2019. Accessed January 25, 2020.
  7. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung : Federal Council approves constitutional amendment for digital pact. March 15, 2019; accessed on January 25, 2020.
  8. ↑ Alexander Jung, Christian Reiermann, Marcel Rosenbusch, Michael Sauga, Gerald Traufetter: Money-constipation . In: Der Spiegel . No. 37 , 2019, pp. 67 f . ( online - September 7, 2019 ).
  9. ↑ Jan Drebes: Digital Pact School is making slow progress. In: rp-online.de. July 6, 2019, accessed October 6, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Der Tagesspiegel : Digitization of schools is hardly making any headway. January 23, 2020, p. 1.
  11. ↑ Der Tagesspiegel : Digital Pact Billions on Hold. The federal government spends a lot of money on WiFi and end devices in schools. But so far only a fraction of the funds have been used. January 23, 2020, p. 20.
  12. ↑ Der Tagesspiegel : Digital Pact Billions on Hold. The federal government spends a lot of money on WiFi and end devices in schools. But so far only a fraction of the funds have been used. January 23, 2020, p. 20.
  13. ↑ Dieter Dohmen and Klaus Hurrelmann: Close schools, keep teaching! The corona crisis is an opportunity for more digital learning and better parenting. An appeal. In: Der Tagesspiegel : March 19, 2020, p. 22.