Numerous associations have spoken out against the use of Microsoft products on the digital education platform for schools in the south-west. Corresponding plans by the Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs should be rejected due to inadequate data protection, announced on Wednesday, among other things, the state student council, the state parents ‘council, the education and science union and the philologists’ association. The Ministry of Culture countered that numerous schools are already using MS 365 applications with positive feedback. “Many schools point out that these products can be used intuitively and thus support everyday school life in a simple and pragmatic way,” said a spokeswoman for department head Susanne Eisenmann (CDU). “It is surprising that the associations in their joint statement do not seem to take note of the needs of schools and practitioners on site and fail to recognize the realities of everyday life.” The Microsoft products should only be used in one of three sub-areas of the educational platform.

Open source advantageous From the point of view der 19 associations, open source solutions such as Moodle, Nextcloud and Big Blue Button are more advantageous for digital teaching. They already worked in many schools and made the use of Microsoft 365 tools superfluous. An open source strategy is also specified in the coalition agreement between Green and Black. “The data protection of the 1.5 million students as well as the 100. 000 teachers are not allowed be negotiated “, emphasized the state student council.

The associations also called on the state to retain digital sovereignty. It should not make itself dependent on an offer like Microsoft 365, because it can be restricted or switched off by the provider or the government of the country in which the company is based. In the case of MS 365, data protection conformity cannot be checked. The consumer advice center also insisted on the use of an open source and data protection compliant digital infrastructure.

No dependence on Microsoft The spokeswoman Eisenmanns, on the other hand, emphasized: “All offers that we want to make to schools with the digital education platform are voluntary. We offer schools various options to choose from in an overall package.” There could be no question of a dependency on Microsoft. On the other hand, the past few weeks have shown that there is a lack of comparable, powerful solutions in the open source area and that developments at the federal and European level are still in their infancy.

The state data protection officer Stefan Brink said with a view to a pilot project he was accompanying at about 30 vocational schools that the problems with US products were known. Microsoft is aware of this, but the company assures that it will get a grip on it technically. “I assume that Microsoft will go to great lengths to ensure data protection compliance.” In particular, it must be ensured that background data does not leak to the USA. The eight-week pilot project is expected to be completed in March. The spokeswoman Eisenmanns emphasized that the goal is a solution with a coherent data protection concept.

The associations continued to criticize that early imprinting of students on Microsoft software runs counter to the targeted media and consumer education of young people. They should be given the opportunity to use freely accessible learning and teaching aids. If individual families wanted to defend themselves legally against the use of the US software, the school peace might be endangered.

(emw)