They’re stories the web loves, and you’ll find a lot of them there. Stories of children who have fled the Ukraine, who are sitting on their laptops in their German accommodation and are being taught online from Berlin, Munich or Erfurt via their Ukrainian learning platform. Everyone understands the message of these stories straight away: In the middle of a terrible war, Ukraine is doing exactly what was not really going to work in Germany in the two years of the pandemic and also in wave five: functioning digital lessons. Corona and refugees from Ukraine – the two huge challenges of the German school system in March 2022 in a single tweet.
The corona pandemic is far from over in schools either, the number of infections is high everywhere and many students and teachers are sick. It is a whole system on the edge of its powers, which is now faced with another major task: according to the current status, 240,000 fleeing people have arrived in Germany, many more will follow, and a large proportion of them are children. In addition to their medical care and accommodation, the question of care and education will be decisive in the coming months.
The Conference of Ministers of Culture (KMK) and Federal Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger have already announced their plans: They want to rely on so-called welcome classes, an organizational effort to enable Ukrainian children to settle into the German school system; a task force of the KMK now wants to work out the details, while the Ukrainian consul general in Hamburg explained to the assembled ministers of education a few days ago that Ukraine does not attach any importance to the integration of refugee children into the German school system. Rather, the students should continue to be taught digitally from their home country, because the Ukrainians do not intend to stay in Germany for long. In addition, the German curriculum is too Russia-friendly. The debates about the will to integrate, compulsory schooling and the shortage of teachers have been in full swing since then.
The truth is, of course, that unfortunately nobody knows how long the people from Ukraine will stay in Germany, because nobody knows how long this war will last. Because it is completely unclear how much of the homeland of those who have fled will be left when it is over. In Mariupol, Vladimir Putin is showing very clearly how far his will to destroy goes. One will at least have to prepare for the possibility that many Ukrainian children will go to school in Germany in the long term.
School is not only a place of education, but also a place of togetherness. This should now also apply to the children who have fled from the Ukraine
German education policy must finally succeed in allowing a pragmatism to prevail here that was so often lacking in the Corona period. The federal states and the federal government will have to make the effort to find different solutions for different children. Neither, for example, can a young person who is about to graduate be denied the opportunity to complete his schooling in Ukraine in digital classes. But parking thousands of children, including younger ones, in front of digital devices and relying entirely on the continuing functioning of the local education system would be a evasion of responsibility. If Germany has learned anything in the past two years, it must be that school is more than just a place for imparting knowledge. School is a place of togetherness – and for many children it is also a shelter. School offers structure and everyday life, which the children and their mothers, most of whom have fled alone, urgently need.
If there is no saving on financial resources and if there is the will to really invest this money in the schools, if Germany succeeds in thinking about the needs of the children, then this would finally be the opportunity to do school again to be understood differently: as a space that catches children. But this requires resources, teachers have to be trained and employed, as well as social workers and trauma therapists. It is urgent (and also politically sensible, by the way) to invest now in the future of these children, regardless of whether they will live as adults in Germany or in a hopefully rebuilt, democratic Ukraine.
In Erich Kästner’s wonderfully pathetic anti-war book “The Conference of the Animals” from 1948, the three organizers, the lion Alois, the giraffe Leopold and the elephant Oskar, have a group of spiders and weaver birds weave the motto of their peace conference onto a banner. “It’s about the kids!” It is there. Kitschy? Sure, but still true in 2022. And would fit into a tweet anytime.