Cooperative school
The cooperative school represents an important chapter in the history of North Rhine-Westphalia . It describes an unrealized school reform , the failure of which (1978) influenced educational policy for many years afterwards. After a successful referendum , the state parliament repealed a law it had previously passed.
The background to this was the attempt by the coalition parties (SPD and FDP) to secure local schools by changing the school laws in North Rhine-Westphalia even if the number of pupils continues to decline in the future. For this purpose, it should be possible to combine the three types of school at lower secondary level (Hauptschule, Realschule, Gymnasium) on site to form a school-organizational unit. This solution first went back to a motion by the opposition Christian Democratic Union, a school experiment "Cooperative Comprehensive School" perform (LT-Drs. 7/1215). However, the parliamentary majority now linked this with the fact that grades 5 and 6 should be run as an orientation level independent of the school type in school centers .
The law of November 8, 1977 (GV. NW. P. 378) passed by the state parliament sparked major disputes not only in parliament. The school reform, criticized as the creeping introduction of comprehensive schools , led to a school struggle, the climax of which was a successful referendum. The state government under Prime Minister Heinz Kühn proposed to the state parliament that the law be withdrawn in order to avoid an otherwise necessary referendum . By law of April 25, 1978 (GV. NW. P. 177), the reform was repealed before it could be implemented.
literature
- Werner Blumenthal: The educational policy debate and the referendum for the cooperative school in North Rhine-Westphalia. An analysis of their political factors, causes and strategies as well as the consequences for educational policy in North Rhine-Westphalia . Dissertation, University of Bonn 1988
- Christian Jülich : The development of school law in North Rhine-Westphalia 1977-1980 . In: Law of Youth and Education 1981, Issue 1
- Ernst Rösner: School policy through popular initiative. Analysis of a failed attempt at reform . Beltz, Weinheim 1981. ISBN 3-407-58085-1
- Hans-Joachim Schabedoth : The counter-reform in education policy. The lost struggle for the cooperative school, a lesson for the practical problems of implementing school reforms . WI-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1980
- Christian Jülich: School structure between chaos and consensus . FAZ No. 191 of August 19, 2010, p. 6