AfD on education

The AfD wants to strengthen dual vocational training and expand it across the state to produce more hands-on skilled workers. A master craftsman or journeyman certificate would again be required for all self-employed trades.

The AfD wants to strengthen dual training. In dual training, people learn at a company and at a vocational school. There should be more offers in rural areas too. Anyone running their own trade business should need a master or journeyman certificate.

The program points out that three quarters of the most sought-after skilled workers have vocational training or a master craftsman certificate. It expects growing demand for tradespeople and a surplus of university graduates. The AfD sees master and skilled-worker qualifications as a way to secure high quality standards and stop them from being weakened.

The AfD wants to return to the three-tier school system of Hauptschule, Realschule and Gymnasium and to bring back Diplom and Magister degree programs. Schools and universities should focus more on achievement and, in the party's view, be free of ideology.

The AfD wants three separate types of school again. These are Hauptschule, Realschule and Gymnasium. Universities should offer the old Diplom degree again. Achievement should matter more in school.

The program describes schools and universities in Lower Saxony as a testing ground for left-wing ideologues and sees educational standards falling. It aims for a differentiated, subject-focused school system that allows movement between tracks. The AfD opposes handing out the Abitur widely, which it calls an obsession with academic degrees. Dual vocational training should be strengthened and general schools given a sharper profile.

The AfD considers the current inclusion of disabled children in mainstream schools in Lower Saxony a failure and wants to end it immediately. Instead, special-needs schools (Förderschulen) should be restored and expanded, and joint schooling should not be automatic.

Today many children with disabilities learn at regular schools. The AfD does not want to continue this in its current form. There should be more special-needs schools again. These are separate schools for children with disabilities.

The program cites staff shortages, lack of funding and overburdened teachers who cannot teach at several levels at once. It supports including gifted disabled students who meet the same academic standards as their classmates. The AfD rejects parents' free choice of school type, including for children with learning disabilities, intellectual disabilities or severe behavioral disorders, calling it “radical inclusion.” Every child with a disability should receive appropriate support.

The AfD wants all-day schools to be the exception. It sees them as a social policy tool that mainly promotes both parents working and, in its view, harms the family and child-appropriate upbringing.

The AfD wants only a few all-day schools. It says all-day school means more childcare, not more teaching. Children should have afternoons for family, clubs and friends.

According to the program, students cannot learn effectively after six lessons and a lunch break. It says all-day schooling mainly promotes women's employment and leads parents to withdraw from raising their children. Music school, sports clubs and other leisure activities lose out. The AfD also points to doctors and psychologists who see greater psychological strain on children.

The AfD wants to equip schools with modern technology but rejects digitalizing teaching itself. The teacher and classroom discussion should remain at the center.

Schools should get modern computers and software. Every classroom should have a digital board with internet. But lessons themselves should not become digital. The teacher stays the most important part.

Every school should get at least one system administrator. Each classroom should have a smartboard with internet access. School administration software such as IServ, which makes communication between teachers, students and parents easier, should be supported. The program rejects efforts to replace the teacher's role with digital media.

The AfD wants newly arrived students without sufficient German to be taught separately in preparatory classes first. In the party's view, native students must not be held back in their schooling by immigration.

Newly arrived children who do not speak German should first go to separate classes. There they learn German. They join regular classes only after a test. Schools should also teach shared values.

Moving into regular classes should require good German and subject knowledge, checked by tests. Children from families likely to stay should be prepared for a German school diploma, while children unlikely to stay should be prepared for returning to their country of origin. Schools should teach values such as responsibility, diligence, tolerance, the rule of law and democracy. The program sees class trips, sports events and theater performances attended by everyone as tools for integration.

The AfD wants to replace denominational religious education at state schools with an ethics class. That class should cover the world religions and give special weight to Christianity.

State schools should no longer teach religion by denomination. Instead, there should be ethics classes for everyone. Children learn about the major religions there. Christianity should get special attention.

The ethics class should teach key aspects of the world religions. In case Islamic religious education is introduced anyway, the program sets conditions. It would have to comply with the Basic Law and be free of foreign influence over both content and funding.

The AfD calls for a headscarf ban at all public schools and for employees in public administration. It considers the headscarf incompatible with a German Leitkultur (guiding culture) that immigrants are expected to fit into.

The AfD wants to ban headscarves at public schools. This would apply to students and teachers. Staff in government offices should not wear them either. The AfD says the headscarf does not fit German culture.

The ban would cover both students and teaching staff. Beyond that, it would apply generally to employees in public administration. The demand is justified with the idea of a guiding culture to which, in the party's view, all immigrant groups must adapt.

The AfD wants schools to return to normal operations, with no masks and no closures. Learning gaps from the Covid period are to be closed through remedial classes, and regular lessons are to take priority over all other tasks.

The AfD wants normal lessons in schools. Children should not wear masks. Schools should not close again. There should be extra lessons in the afternoon. This way children can catch up on what they missed.

The program justifies the demand with learning gaps after the long school closures, which it says home schooling did not make up for. It calls for afternoon remedial classes, the option to repeat a grade voluntarily, and dropping content the party regards as unrelated to teaching. Standards are not to be lowered further. The AfD rejects mobile vaccination stations on school grounds. When staff is short, regular lessons are to come before all-day schooling, remedial classes and inclusion, and the state is to keep reserves such as substitute teachers.

The AfD wants to end what it calls political indoctrination in schools. In its view, the governing parties use the school system as an ideological instrument of power, so that students no longer dare to speak their minds.

The AfD says teachers push political views on students. The party calls this indoctrination. That means pressing an opinion on someone. The AfD wants this to stop. Students should be able to say what they think.

The program points to the principle that public schools teach children together regardless of creed and worldview. As examples of the alleged influence it names how schools handle the topic of gender, how the EU is presented, how the AfD is presented, and the tolerance of school strikes by the Fridays for Future movement. According to the party, affected students fear bad grades or hostility and therefore stop forming their own judgments.

The AfD wants to preserve and expand the vocational school system and offer as many students as possible a suitable training place. The program regards dual training, which combines a company and a vocational school, as a success model and a basis of prosperity.

The AfD wants to strengthen vocational schools. Every student should be able to get a training place. The party likes training in both a company and a school. Vocational schools should also offer courses for adults.

The program stresses that skilled trades, commerce and industry carry the country's prosperity. This requires graduates of Hauptschule and Realschule (lower and intermediate secondary schools) with solid basic knowledge. Vocational schools are also to offer continuing education. Courses are to be designed according to demand together with the chambers of trades and industry.

The AfD wants to expand teaching and research in math, computer science, natural sciences and technology and considers many chairs in the humanities, especially gender studies, dispensable. Political restrictions on research, for example on nuclear energy and genetic engineering, are to end.

The AfD wants more research in technology and science. It thinks many posts for gender research are not needed. Researchers should also work freely on nuclear energy and genetic engineering. The party says politics should not limit research.

The program justifies the demand with the economy's dependence on researchers and engineers. It commits to the freedom of science and research. In the party's view, academia is heavily politicized, as shown by the distribution of chairs: natural sciences have lost weight compared with gender topics, social sciences and humanities. This is to be corrected in future decisions in order to keep up with or return to the global top tier.