The older man in the swimming trunks stands at the edge of the large pool, puts his arms on his hips and looks skeptical. What he is probably thinking is formulated for him by the Bavarian Minister of Education in passing. “Yeah, you want to go swimming and then something like that,” jokes Michael Piazolo (Free Voters). The man grumbles and goes to the children’s pool. This “something” in the Freising adventure pool “Fresch” is the start of the action week “Bavaria swims”. Specifically: a group of politicians, volunteers and the media. Piazolo – no swimming trunks, but willing to accept splashes of water on his suit – takes action. He counts three, two, one head jumps by Antonia and Kilian, children from Freising. Afterwards diving, Piazolo throws a yellow ring into the water. Splash, splash. The swimming trunks would have been smarter.
The campaign for children, parents and teachers to motivate them to learn to swim and to raise awareness of dangers in the water is running for the third time. And after the pandemic and the closure of the baths, it is more necessary than ever. This time the focus is on a virtual learning program that the children filmed here in Freising, together with “Checker Julian”, moderator of the children’s channel. It is supposed to prepare for real swimming, to make you want to go, and to bridge the gap – contemporary, they say. “Cool ass bomb,” the checker praised the boy in one of the seven videos. There is a lot of fun, but also explained, with lively music.
“That can of course never be a substitute, but a useful addition,” says Thomas Huber (CSU), member of the state parliament and chairman of the water rescue service in Bavaria. “We have some catching up to do.” Piazolo adds: The pandemic was “bitter”, but now we will “get started again at full speed”. Behind the minister on the wall it says: “Summer, sun, swimming safely”. But that’s exactly what it lacks.
The swimming ability of children is not in good shape – even before Corona. Reference is made again and again to a survey by the German Lifesaving Society (DLRG) in 2017; nationwide, but a guideline for the Free State. 59 percent of ten-year-olds are therefore not safe swimmers. Which, according to experts, does not need a “seahorse”, but at least a bronze badge. This requires: swimming 200 meters in 15 minutes, jumping into the water, surfacing an object and knowing the bathing rules. As the children demonstrate in “Fresch”. Family reasons, deficits in schools, pool closures – these are what the DLRG identified as reasons. The corona crisis intensifies the trend, for hundreds of thousands of elementary school students not only this form of physical education was canceled. So: catch up.
An investment program of the Free State amounts to 20 million euros a year
Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) recently announced that first graders and preschoolers will receive a voucher for the purchase of the seahorse after the holidays. Swimming should also play a role in bridging offers in August where learning material is made up for. Urgent motions, inquiries, plenary debates, in many cases swimming was the last topic in the state parliament. The FDP, for example, called the government’s plans “conceptless”, and across the opposition the question was: Is that enough? Wasn’t it enough before Corona? And who should fix it anyway?
Swimming is compulsory in curricula. Actually. “The specification in the curriculum fails because of reality,” complains Simone Fleischmann, President of the Bavarian Teachers’ Association (BLLV). Some schools have their own pools, most of them have to use public or private indoor pools. “There are not enough. And many are often 20 or 30 kilometers away from the schools.” Until every child “has a wet toe”, they spend a lot of time traveling there and back, reports Fleischmann. The municipalities are responsible as material cost carriers. But these lessons are generally “treated far too neglected,” says Fleischmann, and not just since Corona. This can be seen in swimming skills: “When you, as a teacher, go on a bathing excursion with eighth graders and let the students into the lake, you often experience a blue miracle. You’d rather get the children out of the water quickly.” The advance for the seahorse could be a first step “to fill in the gaps” for first and second graders who have hardly had any classroom lessons so far. But nothing more.
And the families? Piazolo recently noted this in the state parliament: “Swimming and the ability to swim are issues that affect society as a whole. You shouldn’t just relate it to school; it shortens it too much.” And not everything can be balanced out within a few weeks after swimming pools are back in operation. “Here we need the next school year, but also the summer vacation,” said Piazolo. With the schools – as one of many actors.
What about the swimming lessons actually held? In spite of the curriculum, the exact number of hours is “not specified”, the ministry says on request, so no information is possible. Incidentally, in 2017, as an opposition politician, Piazolo reprimanded precisely this: in truth, lessons “often cannot be implemented at all”, and the “ignorance” about the lessons taking place is “terrifying”. He called for a “documentation requirement”. Could he introduce them now that the students are swimming again.
We asked Hans Bär, more than 70,000 children have already had their first experiences in the water in his swimming school in the Nuremberg area. He thinks the seahorse vouchers are “ridiculous”, “a shot from the hip”. In his school, the little ones can take a course at the age of four, 45 minutes once a week for ten weeks. “That cannot be done in schools because there is not enough time in the timetable. That is completely pointless,” says the 61-year-old. During the pandemic, the problem with non-swimmers worsened: “Because of the pandemic, more children will drown.” He is now allowed to hold courses again, but only in three of the nine pools. Registrations are piling up, parents do not want to rely on state education. Waiting lists, fully booked – these are common reports from the industry. Or: Inquiries from parents, “no matter what it costs”.
The water rescue service under the umbrella of the Bavarian Red Cross (BRK) has also started courses again, as its boss Huber says in Freising. She normally teaches around 10,000 children a year in Bavaria. BRK managing director Leonhard Stark recalls the “dying of pools”, a “creeping loss of swimming opportunities” for years. He appeals to cities and municipalities to renovate ailing bathrooms and not to close them. Even better to build new ones. Somehow almost everyone in Freising takes a swipe at the municipalities. This is a bit strange, because the counter-program can be seen in the cathedral city: the “Fresch”, generous inside and outside, fairly new.
Many baths in Bavaria are getting old and ailing. Municipalities can hardly afford the renovation, especially when it comes to system technology. The SPD parliamentary group regularly asked the state government about it, most recently in 2018: There was talk of dozens of closed baths and renovation costs in the billions across Bavaria. An investment program of the Free State amounts to 20 million euros a year. For the Green MP Johannes Becher this is a “non-interest” of the government in the problem. When he recently asked again about closings, he was referred to the statistics from 2018. “We need this data to understand the development and to be able to take effective measures,” said Becher. He wants to bring the topic of indoor swimming pools to the interior committee.