AfD on education

The AfD wants teachers to structure and direct lessons more strongly again, and subject content to take priority over a competency-based approach. Teacher training should remain separate by type of school degree. The platform cites findings from empirical education research.

The AfD wants teachers to lead lessons more strongly again. Subject knowledge should matter more. Students should practice and repeat more. Teachers should be trained separately for each type of school.

The AfD rejects reducing teachers to mere learning coaches, though varied methods should still have a place. Practice and repetition would be written into the curricula for math, German and the first foreign language with fixed time shares. Yearly comparative tests would check learning progress. The reform of Hamburg's teacher training, which partly provides for a single type of teacher for Stadtteilschulen (comprehensive schools) and Gymnasien (academic high schools), would be reversed. Classroom internships should start early in university studies and include psychological counseling on suitability.

The AfD wants to give math, computer science, natural sciences and technology more weight in the timetable and set up a funding program together with business. Digital media should support in-person teaching but not replace it. It calls for an overall strategy for digitalization in schools.

The AfD wants more lessons in math, computer science, science and technology. Companies should help with this. Computers should help in class. But they should not replace lessons with teachers.

A joint funding program with companies would bring specialist classrooms up to date and recruit additional subject teachers. Schools with a science focus would get additional lab managers. On digitalization, the platform warns of analog and social learning being pushed back and of follow-up costs for technology. An overall strategy should be developed with subject-teaching experts, academia and the administration. Teachers should get enough training, and the benefit of digital media should be scientifically evaluated at regular intervals.

The AfD wants to strengthen the performance principle in schools: grades would be mandatory from second grade, and a passing grade of 4 would again require half of the points. Repeating a year would become possible, and core subjects would be taught in ability groups.

The AfD wants grades starting in second grade. To pass a test, students should again need half of the points. Students should be able to repeat a school year. In key subjects there should be groups by ability.

In the AfD's view, learning takes effort, and grades give children and parents orientation. Class conferences could decide on repeating a year when minimum requirements are not met; remedial lessons for students at risk would remain. Gymnasien (academic high schools) should more often move weak students to the Stadtteilschule (comprehensive school), and strong Stadtteilschule students should be able to switch the other way. At larger Stadtteilschulen, math, German and the first foreign language would be taught in stronger and weaker groups. Written tests and class exams should remain as tools for assessing performance.

The AfD wants violence, lateness and truancy at schools to be consistently penalized. State welfare payments would depend on parents ensuring, for example, regular school attendance, and fines are also planned. Religious bullying should be detected early and stopped.

The AfD wants more discipline in schools. Students who skip school or come late should face consequences. Parents should get less money from the state if their child does not go to school. There should also be fines.

Every case of physical or verbal violence would be reported, discussed promptly in a class conference and communicated to parents. The platform sees conflicts with a religious background that mainly affect Jewish and increasingly Christian students. Such cases should be stopped immediately to protect religious minorities. Teachers, too, should set an example of punctuality.

The AfD demands strict party-political and ideological neutrality in schools and wants the school authority to penalize violations. In its view, people at some schools no longer dare to voice their opinion on controversial topics.

The AfD wants schools to be politically neutral. Teachers should not win students over for a party. Those who break this rule should face consequences. Political advertising should stay banned in schools.

The Beutelsbacher Konsens, a principle of civic education that bars indoctrination and requires controversial topics to be presented as such, should be strictly observed. Students should form their views from balanced and controversial materials. Political advertising, propaganda for extremist groups and calls to join demonstrations should have no place in schools. The platform bases this on students' dependent position toward their teachers.

The AfD wants parents to no longer decide alone on their child's secondary school, but together with the school. If the two disagree, written exams would decide. It argues that sole parental choice often leads to wrong decisions and social inequality.

Today in Hamburg, parents alone choose the school after elementary school. The AfD wants to change that. School and parents should decide together. If they disagree, a written exam should decide.

According to the platform, in some districts more than half of students fail at the Gymnasium (academic high school). These children then have to move to a Stadtteilschule (comprehensive school). The joint decision is meant to reduce such cases.

The AfD wants to raise standards at Gymnasien (academic high schools) and for the Abitur (university entrance diploma) and stop the trend toward ever higher Abitur rates. Gymnasien could choose to return to a nine-year track (G9), and some would get excellence centers for especially strong students.

The AfD wants the Abitur, the top school diploma, to be harder again. Academic high schools should choose for themselves: diploma after 8 or 9 years. Some of these schools should get special centers for very strong students.

According to the platform, Hamburg's Abitur rate is above 50 percent, which it says went along with falling standards. More subjects and points from the final two years would have to count toward the Abitur grade. Disadvantages of Gymnasien compared with Stadtteilschulen (comprehensive schools) in class size and equipment would be removed. The excellence centers are meant for the two-year upper level and modeled on elite centers in sports. The AfD sees vocational qualifications as equally valuable, so both school types should distinguish their educational paths more clearly.

The AfD wants to respond to rising student numbers by founding significantly more new schools rather than making existing ones ever larger. This is meant to preserve the model of small and mid-sized schools.

Hamburg has more and more students. So the AfD wants to found many new schools. Existing schools should not keep growing. Schools should stay a manageable size.

As a benchmark, the platform names schools with fewer than 1,000 students and fewer than 100 teachers at one fixed location. The AfD wants to stop the expansion into larger units with more parallel classes. It argues that long-established schools would otherwise become impersonal.

The AfD rejects a "school for all" that takes in every child regardless of the type and severity of disability. Special-needs schools should remain, and parents of children with special educational needs should keep the right to choose. In the program's view, the child's welfare must guide every decision.

Some children need special support. There are special schools for them. The AfD wants to keep these schools. Parents should choose where their child learns. First, they should get good advice.

The AfD supports teaching children with and without disabilities together but considers specialized institutions essential. The right setting, a mainstream or a special-needs school, should be chosen with parents after in-depth counseling. The seven specializations in special-education teacher training should be preserved. Expertise should be secured through professorships rather than adjunct teaching assignments.

Newly arrived children without sufficient German should first be taught in preparatory classes. They should move into regular classes only after passing tests in German and subject knowledge. Children with no prospect of staying should be prepared for returning to their home country.

Some children are new in Germany. They often speak little German. They should first learn in special classes. After a test, they join regular classes. Children who cannot stay should get ready to go back.

The program sees German as an essential part of a school's mission and links poor German to weaker educational chances. Students likely to stay should work toward a German diploma. Moving into regular classes would require passing tests. Schools should also teach values such as responsibility, honesty and nonviolence and use shared events like class trips to support integration.

The AfD rejects Hamburg's sex education framework, which in its view seeks to replace marriage and family with "sexual diversity." It wants restrained, biology-based sex education coordinated with parents. It opposes what it calls premature sexualization in daycare centers and schools.

The AfD wants to change sex education in schools. It should follow biology. Children should learn that there are two sexes. Parents and schools should work together. Drag queens should not perform in daycare or primary schools.

The program stresses tolerance toward adult lifestyles beyond the traditional family. Children, however, should not be encouraged to question their sex or sexual orientation. Schools should teach that there are basically two innate sexes and that most adults are heterosexual. The AfD opposes drag queen appearances in daycare centers and primary schools.

The AfD wants to stop funding gender studies courses that it regards as ideological and unscientific. Research on gender should fully take natural science findings into account. More broadly, universities should gain autonomy and face less state bureaucracy.

The AfD criticizes gender studies at universities. It thinks some courses are not scientific. These courses should get no more money. Research on gender should follow natural science. Universities should have less red tape.

As examples, the program cites courses at the University of Hamburg from 2017 and 2018/19. Universities should get more freedom and less state bureaucracy. Universities themselves should decide which degrees to offer; the AfD does not call for a general return to the old degrees because of the effort involved.

The AfD opposes what it sees as an overemphasis on university education and wants the state to strengthen dual vocational training. It aims to fend off EU efforts to weaken the system or the master craftsman title. The high dropout rate in apprenticeships should be reduced through better career guidance.

The AfD values training on the job. Trainees learn at a company and at a vocational school. The state should support this training more. The EU should not weaken it. Young people should get more help choosing a job.

The program credits the dual system with Germany's economic success and with preventing youth unemployment. It points to Austria and Switzerland, which have fewer university-track graduates and higher growth. According to the program, one in four apprentices drops out. Career-choice support should be introduced faster and everywhere.