AfD on education

The AfD wants to keep and expand the different types of schools and opposes a move toward comprehensive schools for all. Every school should form learning groups of similar ability. Lower and intermediate secondary schools should prepare students specifically for vocational training in the dual system.

The AfD wants to keep different types of schools. It does not want one school for all. Children with similar ability should learn together. The AfD also wants to strengthen job training. Schools should prepare students better for it.

In the platform's view, only a differentiated but permeable school system allows targeted individual support and fair educational chances for all social classes. Classes with very large gaps in ability achieve poorer results, it says, so learning groups should be of similar ability. The AfD considers it wrong to promote academic paths one-sidedly, arguing that this leads to poor career choices and a shortage of skilled workers. Hauptschulen, Realschulen and Sekundarschulen should therefore prepare students as well as possible for vocational colleges and apprenticeships.

The AfD demands that children learn to read and write from first grade using cursive handwriting and the primer method. Dictations and writing exercises are to become a fixed part of German lessons again. The platform regards good handwriting as a prerequisite for success at school.

Children should learn cursive writing in first grade. They should learn with a primer. A primer is a book that introduces letters step by step. Dictations should be a fixed part of German lessons again.

The platform cites studies saying that a lack of practice in cursive writing is linked to poorer performance in other areas. Digitalization, it says, is pushing handwriting further aside. With the primer method, in which letters and words are introduced step by step according to fixed rules, children learn spelling best, the platform argues. First grade should therefore start right away with the Latin cursive script.

The AfD wants to end the current practice of inclusion in schools and to keep and expand special-needs schools (Förderschulen). In its view, Germany already meets the United Nations' requirements on participation in education through its special school system.

Special schools are schools for children with special needs. The AfD wants to keep and expand these schools. It wants to stop joint teaching in its present form. The AfD says special schools help these children best.

The platform describes the special school system as a highly specialized part of general schooling whose quality goes beyond the UN convention. Children receive support there that regular schools cannot provide, it says. Attending a special school is therefore not discrimination but a precondition for a later life free of discrimination, according to the platform. The AfD wants to stop inclusion as it is currently practiced.

The AfD wants to hire more teachers for all types of schools and reduce class sizes to 12 to 20 students in the medium term. It wants to keep and professionalize open all-day schooling. The state is to contribute substantially to its funding and cover the staff costs.

The AfD wants smaller school classes. A class should have 12 to 20 children. For this, there should be more teachers. Afternoon care at schools should stay and get better. The state should pay for the staff.

The platform attributes full classes to a teacher shortage and organizational failings and sees the problem made worse by immigration. Smaller classes would leave more time for each student, it says. For open all-day care, municipalities are to provide suitable rooms and qualified staff. In addition to homework help and individual support, partnerships with sports clubs are planned. The AfD stresses that the offer is voluntary and continues to call upbringing by parents the ideal case.

The AfD wants every school to adopt a binding dress code. The party rejects headscarves for female students until at least age 14. It justifies this with the neutrality of schools and a professional learning atmosphere.

Every school should have fixed rules for clothing. The rules apply to everyone at the school. Girls under 14 should not wear a headscarf at school. The AfD says school should be neutral.

The dress code is to be adopted by the school conference and apply to everyone involved in school life. In the platform's view, conspicuous religious or ideological clothing messages disturb the neutrality of schools. Revealing or provocative clothing also harms the learning atmosphere, it says. The platform claims that many girls are urged or forced by their families to wear religiously motivated clothing.

The AfD calls for uniform nationwide standards for the tasks, grading criteria and marking of the Abitur (university entrance exam). It also wants to introduce a voluntary Propädeutikum at Gymnasien, an extended Abitur exam that prepares students for academic work.

The Abitur is the final school exam before university. It should follow the same rules all over Germany. The AfD also wants a voluntary extra exam at Gymnasium schools. It is called Propädeutikum. It prepares very strong students for university.

The uniform standards are meant to secure the quality of the Abitur. The Propädeutikum is to give especially motivated students the chance to earn an outstanding diploma. Gymnasien that offer it are to receive staff and resources for it, and the curriculum is to be adapted. Universities are to be allowed to treat Propädeutikum graduates separately when allocating study places.

The AfD wants teacher-led whole-class instruction to become an essential part of learning again. Teachers are to be strengthened as authorities in both their subject and in discipline. Notable social and work behavior is to be recorded on report cards.

Teachers should lead lessons themselves again. They should teach in front of the whole class. The AfD wants more discipline at school. Report cards should show how a student behaves and works.

The platform criticizes that teaching guidelines in North Rhine-Westphalia see teachers mainly as moderators, which it says often leaves students overwhelmed and on their own. Teachers are to remain obliged to pursue further subject training and to lead lessons themselves. The AfD regards virtues such as diligence, punctuality and reliability as the basis of a good learning atmosphere. Both positive and negative behavior is to be documented on report cards. School principals are to back teachers in their role as educators.

The AfD wants the commission for Islamic religious education to be staffed only with representatives of associations whose view of religion is committed to the European Enlightenment. Organizations to which it attributes fundamentalist tendencies, such as DITIB, are to be excluded.

North Rhine-Westphalia has a commission for Islamic religion classes. The AfD wants to allow only certain Islamic groups there. These groups should share the values of the Enlightenment. The association DITIB should no longer take part.

According to the platform, schools should convey knowledge about religions and enable a rational, also critical, engagement with one's own faith. Christian religious education achieves this, it says, while the AfD sees a need for clarification in Islamic instruction. The commission set up by the state government is therefore to be staffed differently. The AfD names the Turkish association DITIB as an example of an organization that should no longer participate.

The AfD wants universities in North Rhine-Westphalia to offer the Diplom, Magister and Staatsexamen degrees again alongside bachelor's and master's programs. It considers the Bologna reform a failure. Teacher training is also to be restructured, with teacher training colleges and a two-year practical training period.

Universities used to offer degrees called Diplom, Magister and Staatsexamen. The AfD wants to allow these degrees again. Bachelor's and master's degrees should stay too. Teachers should also be trained differently. Their practical training should last two years.

In the platform's view, the switch to bachelor's and master's degrees made studies more school-like, added bureaucracy and lowered standards without bringing more international exchange. The AfD wants to strengthen the differentiated system of dual vocational training, universities of applied sciences and universities, raise the level of school diplomas and distinguish between the degrees of the two types of higher education institutions. For teachers, it demands teacher training colleges, a reform of primary school teacher studies and state exam programs for Realschule and Gymnasium teachers. The practical semester is to be dropped while internships remain. During the Referendariat (practical training), independent teaching is to fall from nine to six hours.

The AfD wants to make university chairs less dependent on third-party funding and requires university leaders to safeguard open debate on campus. Approval of degree programs is to move from private accreditation agencies back to the ministry in order to cut bureaucracy.

Researchers often need money from outside. The AfD wants them to depend on it less. At universities, everyone should be able to state their views. The ministry should approve degree programs again. Today private firms do this.

The platform sees research freedom at risk because basic funding for chairs is low and grants often go to topics such as climate change, gender or sustainability. It also says professors with controversial positions are prevented from holding events or are defamed. University leaders are therefore to ensure full freedom of debate. Accreditation, it argues, restricts freedom of teaching and causes disproportionate administrative effort. New accreditation is to be needed only when the foundations of a program change substantially, and the AfD rejects it for doctoral programs.