While schools in Germany were closed, authorities in all 16 states decided to go ahead with the Abitur final exams that final year school students need to take to enter university. Also, each federal state is handling the school closings differently.
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The high school graduates in Germany should take their exams this year despite the corona pandemic. The federal states will have the final exams carried out in the 2020/2021 school year, as the Conference of Ministers of Education decided after a communication on Thursday.
Overall, the ministers of education decided on an opening course. At the same time, the federal states refrained from taking uniform steps. Several countries had already announced that most pupils would be homeschooled after the Easter break.
“As ministers of education, we see it as our task to give children and young people a voice and to work to give them back their living environment - as far as possible”, the ministers decided after hours of deliberation. Accompanied by a comprehensive test and vaccination strategy, the federal states want to offer as much face-to-face teaching as possible, “in modified regular operation or in an alternate model”. Above all, final classes have priority in face-to-face teaching.
The test options should be expanded so that all pupils, teachers and other school workers can be offered the option of self-tests twice a week. The hygiene rules must also be strictly adhered to in the future.
An early vaccination appointment should be offered to all employees at schools with contact with students. The President of the Conference of Ministers of Education, the Brandenburg department head Britta Ernst (SPD), said: "Even in this difficult phase of the corona epidemic, education policy is responsible for ensuring children and young people have access to education and instruction."
There is no nationwide uniform regulation for schools
The chairman of the Association of Education and Upbringing, Udo Beckmann, criticized: “Although the insightful voices in politics have recently become louder that schools finally need binding, federally uniform, evidence-based and indicator-based regulations, the result of the Conference of Ministers of Education is once again the opposite. "
There is wild growth. The CDU chairman and Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Armin Laschet, had spoken out in favor of a nationwide uniform regulation on how the schools in the pandemic will continue after the Easter holidays.
In North Rhine-Westphalia , with the exception of the final classes, distance lessons will take place for all students from Monday, as announced by School Minister Yvonne Gebauer (FDP). In North Rhine-Westphalia there will be classroom lessons for the pupils in the final classes even after the Easter holidays. For the other cohorts, distance learning is initially only valid for one week until April 16.
Gebauer said that doctors had confirmed at the conference of ministers of education that the incidence of infections in children and adolescents was increasing. "The schools are not driving the pandemic," said Gebauer at the same time. According to reports from the Robert Koch Institute in recent weeks, schools are playing a growing role in virus circulation in Germany.
Many minors were also infected with the British Corona variant in daycare centers. On Thursday, the Robert Koch Institute announced: "The role of children and adolescents in the transmission of Sars-CoV-2 has not been conclusively clarified."
As previously announced for other countries, Berlin is now also introducing compulsory tests for students. Alternating lessons in study groups with half the class size should be the rule. Grades 7 to 9 are excluded for the time being and should follow from April 19.
The state government also announced a new test strategy in Baden-Württemberg . From April 19, teachers, schoolchildren and caretakers are no longer allowed to attend classes or enter the premises without a negative Corona test if there are more than 100 new corona infections per 100,000 inhabitants on three consecutive days.
Those who return to schools in the week from April 12th can still be tested voluntarily. However, in the week after the Easter break, face-to-face classes are initially only available for graduating classes - alternating. Only emergency care is offered for students in grades 1 to 7.
The federal states handle the school closings differently
In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , lessons have already started after a ten-day Easter break. In large parts of the country, students in grades 1 to 6 and the final grades returned to their schools for face-to-face teaching. Brandenburg sends older students above elementary school back into distance learning.
In Bavaria, schools generally switch back from face-to-face to distance learning when the incidence value reaches 100 in a city or district. Hamburg only does this if the value is over 200 on three consecutive days. Saxony says goodbye to the link to the incidence value and keeps schools and daycare centers open regardless of this.
Lessons were already back in Saxony-Anhalt and Rhineland-Palatinate , and in Saarland they began on Thursday. Hamburg did not have an Easter break, and the holidays in Hesse and Schleswig-Holstein will last until the end of next week.
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