The Federal Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media (Bitkom) demands a right to digital education in Germany. As Bitkom President Achim Berg announced on Tuesday, many people are dissatisfied with the current education policy in times of pandemic. Therefore there should be a “legal right to digital lessons for pupils of all school types”.

Right to digital school lessons “Germany’s education politicians have probably never triggered such disappointment and alienation – among students, parents and teachers, but also in business and society. Too little Their proposals are ambitious and too old-fashioned, their decisions are too erratic, their communication is too chaotic, “said Berg with regard to the school closings in the corona pandemic.

How should digitization be implemented in our schools? How has it gone so far? This is what our series of articles would like to illuminate.

Everyone understood that at the beginning the corona crisis had to be driven “on sight”, but now after almost a year of the corona crisis there is still a lack of “a vision, strategy and future-oriented, decisive action”. That is why Bitkom is campaigning for a legal right to digital teaching. In this way, pupils should in future have the opportunity to take part in school lessons even after the end of the pandemic, for example if they cannot attend classroom lessons at school due to illness or other restrictions.

“No witchcraft” Berg complains that schools are currently unable to hold functioning digital lessons. Instead of taking action and setting up learning platforms, the federal states would continue to do everything to return to face-to-face teaching. Berg considers this to be irresponsible due to the large number of infections with the coronavirus and the type of teaching is out of date.

Every student must can be taught digitally in the current situation, says Berg. Providing functional learning platforms is ultimately “no rocket science”. It is now up to the federal states to provide appropriate server capacities and IT support for the schools. Schools, pupils and teachers should have fast, unbureaucratic access to the platforms. Examples in some schools have already shown that digital teaching works.

Insufficiently functioning digital learning opportunities In December 68, the Federal Association of the Digital Economy (BVDW) determined in a representative survey that the digital courses offered in German schools have been The beginning of the pandemic had improved little or no improvement at all. The complained 68, 2 percent of German citizens with school-age children, only 7.7 would have seen a strong movement in digital learning in schools. Overall, however, the DVDW sees this as bad evidence for educational policy in Germany. Data protection has unsettled many schools and teachers and slowed down their commitment.

With the beginning of the hard lockdown in December, some learning platforms in the federal states such as the Berlin learning area, the Bavarian portal Mebis or the Saxon version of LernSax were partially disrupted or failed completely.

The platforms are also showing performance problems. On Wednesday, for example, the Bavarian Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs Michael Piazolo wrote a letter to schools to use the Mebis learning platform less in order to avoid peak loads and a collapse of the system. Now the schools should only log in according to time slots.

Digital lessons are not possible for everyone Critics also generally see negative Impact of digital teaching. Financially disadvantaged students could not take part in digital learning as easily and on an equal basis as better-off students due to a lack of resources such as computers or tablets and internet access. Learning at home is also not possible in some families due to limited space, which increases any social conflicts within the family.

(olb)