Education
Teachers’ association reprimands revaluation of Mecklenburg Abi
Does the revaluation of the Abitur in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania distort the nationwide comparability? The new president of the teachers’ association, Stefan Düll, has this concern. photo
© Silas Stein/dpa
An additional grade point in math for the Abitur class in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania caused criticism. Do corona restrictions and lack of time justify the subsequent adjustment?
The German Teachers’ Association and business representatives criticize the fact that Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania values the written mathematics Abitur because of the many poor results. This distorts the nationwide comparability of grades, said the new president of the teachers’ association, Stefan Düll, the “Bild” newspaper. There are always deviations in the note cuts. “One must not fall into the trap of wanting to excuse everything with Corona in the future.” Düll has headed the Justus von Liebig High School in Neusäß near Augsburg since 2014.
The general manager of the Central Association of the German Construction Industry (ZDB), Felix Pakleppa, accused politicians of playing the wrong game. “You can miscalculate at school, but not on the construction site. The wall has to be straight,” he told the newspaper. The companies in his industry have to “retrain apprentices in math and German more and more often,” explained Pakleppa. “A tiler, for example, has to be able to calculate the floor. That has to be right in any case and mustn’t be wrong.” The President of the Federal Association of Freight Transport and Logistics (BGL), Dirk Engelhardt, also criticized the subsequent adjustment of grades.
Distance classes from December to May
State Education Minister Simone Oldenburg (left) yesterday stated that the processing time for the tasks had been assessed by experts as too short in retrospect. In addition, this high school graduation class was in distance classes in the 10th grade from December to May due to the corona restrictions. According to the experts, this has a negative effect, especially in mathematics.
All those who have written a maths test, both basic course and advanced course students, receive the additional grade point. According to the Ministry, there is a choice between a written and an oral Abitur exam in the basic course. In the math basic course, the average of the written Abis was 4.0 or 4.2 points and thus significantly below the level of the previous year. Five points are required to pass the exam. In 2021, the math Abi in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was even raised by two grade points due to poor results