Internet
Ministry of Education: “Digital Pact 2.0” for schools only in 2025
Pupils in a class at the Hunsrück elementary school in Berlin solve a task on a tablet in class. photo
© Soeren Stache/dpa
Many schools have been equipped with WiFi, digital boards and tablets via the “Digital Pact for Schools”. The funding program expires in 2024. A follow-up program is planned, but not before 2025.
According to the Federal Ministry of Education, there will be no new money for the digitization of schools before 2025 as long as the funds from the current first “Digitalpakts Schule” are not accounted for. A spokeswoman said on Wednesday that the follow-up program agreed in the coalition agreement, the “Digitalpakt 2.0”, was not planned for 2024 but for 2025. “Tagesspiegel Background” first reported on it.
The federal states were “explained” last year that funds from a new digital pact “won’t be available in parallel with the ongoing financing of projects in the existing digital pact for schools,” said the spokeswoman. She referred to the corresponding administrative agreement between the federal and state governments for the funding program, which regulates its implementation.
The agreement stipulates that digital pact investments in schools must be settled by the federal states with the federal government by the end of 2025. Applications for such measures can only be submitted until the end of May 2024. Then the term of the digital package ends.
Funding gap feared
The Education and Science Union (GEW) criticized this as a “funding gap of at least seven months”. The federal government is putting off the follow-up regulation and financing of the digital school pact, said GEW board member Anja Bensinger-Stolze on Wednesday. Planning security must be guaranteed for the schools, especially if you want to recruit IT staff in the long term.
The digital pact was launched in 2019. The federal government had initially provided five billion euros, for example for the construction of the school’s own WiFi or for the purchase of interactive boards (smartboards). In the course of Corona, the program was increased three times, also to purchase tablets.
In its coalition agreement, the traffic light announced that, together with the federal states, it would launch a “Digital Pact 2.0” for schools with a term until 2030, which would include the “sustainable new acquisition of hardware, the replacement of outdated technology as well as device maintenance and administration”. . Since there are no concrete plans for this so far, doubts have been raised as to whether the project will become something in view of the current savings efforts.
The spokeswoman for the Ministry of Education said: “As stated in the coalition agreement, we want to support the federal states and municipalities in the digitization of the education system. That is why we are of course working on the Digital Pact 2.0 and are talking to the federal states about it.”