Dispute over political education: Berlin's new unit failed!

Dispute over political education: Berlin's new unit failed!

Berlin, Deutschland - In Berlin, a new staff position for the control and coordination of educational projects should have been set up, but now the education administration is pulling the ripcord. The “Political Education and Democracy Promotion” unit will not be implemented in the current legislative period for the time being, as can be seen from an answer to a parliamentary request from the left. This also reports Tagesschau .

The planned staff stop-led to a dispute within the black-red coalition. While the CDU-led training administration favored a regulated implementation of the aluminum, the SPD feared an inadmissible influence on the allocation of funding for political education projects. Education Senator Katharina Günther-Lüsch (CDU) made it clear that direct influence was not planned, but the skepticism remained.

protests and savings in education

The topics of political education and democratic promotion are currently not only an internal Berlin political business-they also affect daily life in schools. Reasons in education policy are on the agenda, the Senate Department for Education announced savings of 39 million euros. This will primarily affect the political, cultural and queer pedagogical offers. The taz reports that over 5,000 people have taken to demonstrate to demonstrate against these cuts.

In circles of the Otto-Wels primary school in Kreuzberg, the savings are already noticeable. 80,000 euros less are provided for school social work, which means that almost three out of four places are eliminated. The school's disposal fund has also reduced and reduced from 17,000 to only 5,000 euros, which questions essential tasks such as interpreting services. Falk Seidel, an educator at this school, illustrates how important school social workers are for child protection, dispute settlement and democracy formation.

diverse educational offers in Berlin

Despite these challenges, there is still a wealth of providers in Berlin that promote political education. Organizations such as the Anne frank Zentrum and the youth red cross are committed as well as numerous other initiatives in subject areas such as anti-discrimination, democracy and media, democracy development in schools as well as gender equity. These topics are essential to promote a mature society and to sensitize children and young people to the challenges of a pluralistic world.

While the political disputes about the political education department continue to smolder, the question remains how existing educational offers can be secured in the long term by the recent savings program. The education administration tries to signal that, despite the savings, central educational offers should be preserved, but reality in many schools speaks a different language. The affected actors therefore plan to carry out further information and protest actions, because there is something- the future generation must not be left behind.