AfD on education

The AfD wants to ban the open concept in all daycare centers in the state, a model in which fixed groups are dissolved and children choose their own activities. In its view, children are less well supported and less prepared for elementary school under this model. Reading aloud would also get more weight in preschool education.

Some daycare centers have no fixed groups. The children choose what they do. This is called the open concept. The AfD wants to ban it. It also wants more reading aloud in daycare and in families.

The platform favors fixed groups with one caregiver, saying they prepare children for a school class and allow planned educational projects. It claims that under the open concept children avoid what they ought to work on, and points to early reports from elementary schools of larger learning gaps. The state's early education program "Bildung elementar" would be rewritten accordingly. For reading aloud, the party plans a statewide campaign, revised curricula, and more training and advice for parents and staff. Existing initiatives would keep receiving funding and regular read-aloud events would be set up.

The AfD wants to relieve schools of every task it does not consider educational, including care services, integration and inclusion. Teaching would return to traditional methods, with the teacher as an authority. The party sees this as the way out of what it describes as decades of falling educational standards.

The AfD wants schools to only teach knowledge. Children should above all learn to read, write and do math. Integration and inclusion would no longer be a job for schools. Inclusion means children with and without disabilities learn together. Teachers should have more authority again.

The platform attributes the education crisis not to a lack of money but to a declining focus on achievement and what the AfD sees as overly soft teaching. Reforms would start in elementary school and secure basic skills. The tools the AfD names are homework, teacher-led instruction, regular practice, repetition, testing and extensive reading. The party sees early and heavy use of digital devices in elementary schools as one cause of falling performance. The platform criticizes political education in schools as one-sided.

The AfD wants a school system divided by performance and rejects steps toward a single comprehensive school. The Gymnasium (academic-track high school) would again be the school that leads to university, attended by no more than a quarter of each age group. In the party's view, higher demands there would raise standards across all school types.

The AfD wants different types of schools for different levels of ability. At most 25 percent of children should go to the Gymnasium. That is the school that leads to university. The final exam should become harder. The party will look at bringing back two other school types.

The platform criticizes upper-level Gymnasium classes at Gemeinschaftsschulen (comprehensive schools) as a step toward a single school for all. The AfD wants to examine bringing back the Hauptschule and Realschule (lower and intermediate secondary schools). Children would learn in classes that are as uniform as possible, grouped by aptitude and ability. If fewer students attend the Gymnasium, the platform says, more strong students go to the other school types, raising standards there too.

The AfD wants to make hands-on trades education a fixed part of everyday school life. Students would discover their practical talents early, and the skilled trades would gain more young recruits.

The AfD wants more skilled-trades learning in school. Students should build and repair things themselves. This way they can find their talents early. The party says the state needs more tradespeople.

The plan includes workshops, project days, and construction and technology modules as fixed parts of teaching. Schools would cooperate with trade businesses from the region. Career orientation would not just inform but let students experience real occupations hands-on. According to the platform, this would strengthen motivation and self-confidence.

The AfD wants the elementary school's recommendation after fourth grade to again be binding in deciding which type of school a child attends. It argues that teachers can usually judge a child's performance better than parents.

After fourth grade, the school recommends a type of school. Today parents can still decide themselves. The AfD wants the recommendation to count again. Tests for all children would help with this. Good students could switch schools later.

According to the platform, the recommendation in Saxony-Anhalt has been advisory only since 2011. The AfD considers that a mistake because parents often overestimate their child's performance. Centralized tests would make the assessment more objective; their result would determine which school type is recommended. The system would stay permeable: students with very good results at the Realschule could move up to the Gymnasium in any school year.

The AfD wants to immediately end joint classes for children with and without disabilities and expand special-needs schools (Förderschulen) instead. The platform argues that inclusion has failed because disabled children get too little attention there and lessons are slowed down.

Today, children with and without disabilities often learn together. This is called inclusion. The AfD wants to end inclusion. Children with disabilities should go to special schools. There should be more of these schools.

The platform calls inclusion a failed experiment. It says disabled children need teaching tailored specifically to them, which in the AfD's view is only possible at special schools. It also argues that staffing inclusive classes with two teachers ties up personnel that is scarce because of the teacher shortage. The AfD considers grouping students by ability a precondition for better teaching quality.

The AfD wants to tighten grading standards at all types of schools so that good grades are awarded less often. In addition, statewide student competitions with prizes and public honors are meant to strengthen a culture of achievement.

The AfD says there are too many good grades. It wants stricter rules for grades. Students should only pass a test with half of the points. There should also be contests with prizes for students.

The platform points to an average Abitur (university entrance diploma) grade of 2.2 in the 2024/25 school year and says a third of graduates had a grade starting with a one, the top mark. Grading scales are to be raised at all school types, with the passing grade requiring at least half of the points. Where performance cannot be measured in points, the qualitative requirements are to rise. The AfD plans statewide math olympiads, language contests and science research competitions. Outstanding results in regular exams are also to be highlighted with prizes and commendations.

The AfD wants to revise history curricula and put more emphasis on the 19th century and the founding of the German nation-state in 1871. In addition, hands-on local studies (Heimatkunde) are meant to teach children how food is produced.

The AfD wants to change history lessons. Students should learn more about the 19th century. The German Empire of 1871 is important to the AfD. There should also be more lessons about the home region. Children should learn where their food comes from.

In the AfD's view, history lessons at all school types give too little room to the 19th century as the era when the German nation took shape. The platform describes the empire founded by Bismarck as the predecessor of today's Federal Republic and as a model in science, culture and the economy. Practical local studies and teaching about medicinal plants are also to get more weight. Children should know that a butcher, a farmer and an animal stand behind meat products. A partnership with the forest protection association Schutzgemeinschaft Deutscher Wald is planned to give insight into farming and forestry.

The AfD wants to bar teachers from voicing their own political opinions in class and to end state funding for the program "Schule gegen Rassismus – Schule mit Courage" (School Against Racism – School With Courage). The platform argues that students are currently being influenced in a politically one-sided way.

Teachers should no longer share their political opinions in class. They should only lead the discussion. The state should also stop paying for a program against racism in schools. The AfD says this program is politically one-sided.

Under the current Beutelsbach Consensus, teachers may state their opinions but must not impose them on students. The AfD considers this insufficient because teachers act as authority figures, and wants to turn it into a strict neutrality requirement. Teachers would only moderate student discussions and not join in with their own views. According to the AfD, the anti-racism program is directed against right-wing and patriotic attitudes, so state funding is to end. The platform also takes the view that real racism hardly exists anymore.

The AfD wants to write education in love of homeland and the German people into the state constitution and the school law. Public schools would fly the national flag every school day, and the national anthem would be sung together at school ceremonies.

The AfD wants to change the state constitution. It should say that schools teach children to love their homeland and the German people. The German flag should fly at school every school day. At school events, everyone should sing the national anthem.

The platform cites Bavaria as a model, where the constitution and school law require this kind of education. Article 27(1) of the Saxony-Anhalt constitution would get an additional sentence to that effect. Section 1 of the school law, which according to the AfD contains many anti-discrimination commitments but none to people and homeland, would be rewritten along the same lines. The AfD argues that education must also build a stable national identity. The anthem would be sung by students and teachers together.

The AfD wants to keep digital media out of elementary schools and use them only selectively at secondary schools; smartphones would be banned through grade 10. Instead, computer science would become a required subject from grade 8 so that students understand how the devices work.

Elementary schools should not use digital media in class. Later, schools should use them only sometimes. Phones should be banned up to grade 10. In return, all students should learn computer science from grade 8.

The platform cites studies and brain researcher Manfred Spitzer, saying digital teaching brings no benefit and harms concentration, memory and verbal expression. The AfD also fears that digital boards could be used to replace teachers with artificial intelligence. According to the platform, the smartphone ban follows recommendations by the Leopoldina, the German national academy of sciences. Books, homework planners and the blackboard are to remain the main teaching tools. Computer science classes would cover theory, programming and the use of common office software such as Word and Excel.

The AfD wants to secure and, where possible, expand Russian language teaching in Saxony-Anhalt and restart the student exchanges with Russia that have been suspended since 2022. It cites an interest in good relations with Russia and rejects the current policy toward the country.

The AfD wants to keep Russian classes in schools. There should be more of them if possible. Students should be able to go on exchanges to Russia again. The AfD wants good relations with Russia.

The platform describes Russian as a world and scientific language with more than 250 million speakers. To find teachers, university-educated native Russian speakers would be recruited as career changers. Germany's conference of state education ministers suspended cooperation with Russia in February 2022, and Saxony-Anhalt followed suit. The AfD wants to resume the paused exchange programs and create additional ones. It argues that personal contact helps with language learning and counters what the party calls agitation against Russia.

The AfD wants at least four hours of physical education per week in every grade and school type, with swimming as a fixed part of PE. It cites the benefits of exercise for children and a rising number of fatal drowning accidents.

All students should have at least four hours of sports each week. Swimming should always be part of sports class. Every child should learn to swim. The AfD says more and more people die in swimming accidents.

In the platform's view, sports balance out mental work, encourage a drive to achieve and counter attention problems, while team sports build a sense of community. Children would be introduced to swimming playfully in elementary school through the "Seepferdchen" beginner badge. Later, the swimming badge would count toward the PE grade. From grade 11, the lifeguard levels of the DLRG (German Life Saving Association) would also count toward grading.

The AfD wants the Bundesjugendspiele (national school sports day) in elementary schools to be held as a graded competition again. The platform argues that this is how children come to enjoy achievement.

The Bundesjugendspiele are a sports day at schools. Since 2023, elementary schools no longer hold it as a contest. The AfD wants the contest back. It says children then enjoy doing well.

Since the 2023/24 school year, the Bundesjugendspiele in elementary schools have taken place without competition or grades. The platform says this distances children from the idea of achievement. The AfD therefore plans to lobby the board responsible for the event to return to the earlier rules for grades 1 through 4.

The AfD wants to address the teacher shortage by bringing back retired teachers, recruiting teachers nationwide and making the job more attractive through less bureaucracy. In addition, principals would be allowed to form larger classes when many lessons are canceled, and a new college of education would train elementary and lower secondary teachers.

Saxony-Anhalt does not have enough teachers. The AfD wants to ask retired teachers to work again. It wants to bring teachers from all over Germany. Teachers should have less paperwork. If many lessons are canceled, classes may get bigger.

All teachers who retired within the past five years or will retire within the next two would get a voluntary offer to keep working full-time or part-time. School operations are to be freed of red tape; the platform also names ending inclusion and separate classes for refugee children as relief for teachers. A nationwide campaign would recruit teachers, with working conditions rather than pay as the main draw. If lesson coverage falls below 90 percent, principals could lift class size limits until coverage is permanently above 95 percent. The AfD wants to concentrate the training of all elementary and lower secondary teachers at a newly founded college of education.

The AfD wants to lower minimum enrollment numbers so that small elementary schools can stay open. The platform argues that otherwise up to half of the elementary schools in some districts would be at risk and rural areas would decline further.

The AfD wants to keep small elementary schools. A school should be safe with just 40 children. Today it needs 60 children. This way villages can keep their schools.

The state regulation on school development planning would be revised. An elementary school would be secure with 40 rather than 60 students. School networks could consist of up to three schools with at least 100 students in total, with no further conditions. The platform also considers mixed-grade teaching acceptable and says children learn better in small groups.

The AfD wants to replace compulsory school attendance with a duty to be educated, so that parents can also teach their children at home. It justifies this with the primacy of parents in matters of upbringing and its criticism that schools educate children politically.

Today all children must go to school. The AfD wants to change that. Parents should be allowed to teach their children at home. These children must then take a test twice a year. A child who learns too little must go back to school.

The platform names Austria as its model. Teaching at home would have to meet the same quality standards as teaching at school. Homeschooled children would take central exams every six months; if they fall behind, they must return to a school. The AfD sees homeschooling as a parental right, education as a duty and school as a state offering that parents are not obliged to accept.

The AfD wants to take decisions on teaching matters away from schools' participatory bodies and hand them to the ministry. Teaching materials would be set uniformly statewide and lent to students free of charge.

Schools have a body called the Gesamtkonferenz. Teachers, parents and students have a say there. The AfD wants only the ministry to decide on teaching and books. All schools in the state should use the same books. Children should borrow the books for free.

The platform regards school as a nonpolitical sphere where curricula, grades or textbooks should not be put to a vote; experts in the ministry should decide. For complaints about teachers and principals, parents and students would get expanded rights of appeal and a highly visible complaints office at the education ministry. The ministry would prescribe the same teaching materials statewide for each school type and grade, which the platform says eases school transfers, lowers book prices and makes performance more comparable. Textbooks would be lent at no cost; buying them remains voluntary.

The AfD wants children of refugees and asylum seekers to be taught permanently in separate classes. There they would learn content from the schools of their home countries, because the platform regards their stay as only temporary.

Children of refugees should go to school. But the AfD wants separate classes for them. There they should learn what children learn in their home country. The AfD says these children stay in Germany only for a while.

The platform gives three reasons: the children should understand that they stay only as long as grounds for flight exist; they should learn material from their home school system to ease their return; and, in the AfD's view, local children should be spared the strains of shared lessons. Teachers are to be found among the refugees themselves where possible. Unlike the former welcome classes, the separate classes would not serve as a bridge into regular classes.

The AfD rejects faith-based Islamic religious instruction in Saxony-Anhalt's schools. It cites the small share of Muslims, the organizational effort and the state's Christian heritage.

The AfD does not want Islam classes in schools. It says only few Muslims live in the state. And the state has a Christian tradition. Muslim students can learn about their religion at mosque associations.

The platform points to estimates that two to three percent of the population are Muslim and considers the effort for such classes unjustifiable. It also states that Islam does not belong to Germany. The AfD refers Muslim students seeking religious instruction to mosque associations.

The AfD wants to deploy private security guards at schools where needed and punish violent students as severely as the law allows. The platform justifies this with what it calls an unbearable level of violence at schools, especially in Halle.

The AfD says there is too much violence at schools. It wants guards in the schoolyard where needed. Students who are violent should be punished hard. They should be expelled faster. Some should go to a special school.

The guards would report to the principal and prevent violence in the schoolyard. Schools and prosecutors would be linked so that every offense by students of criminal age goes to court. For younger students, the rules on disciplinary and educational measures would be changed to allow faster expulsion. Repeat offenders or especially serious cases could be transferred to a special school for violent students. Mandatory work would also be added as an educational measure.

The AfD wants to replace bachelor's and master's degrees with the former German programs and degrees such as the Diplom and Magister. Saxony-Anhalt would switch first, followed by a Bundesrat initiative to take all of Germany out of the Bologna system. The platform argues that German universities are only attractive internationally if they have a distinctive system of their own.

The AfD wants to get rid of bachelor's and master's degrees. The old German degrees, Diplom and Magister, would come back. Saxony-Anhalt would change first. Later all of Germany would follow.

The Bologna Process is the Europe-wide alignment of university systems around bachelor's and master's degrees. The platform calls it a mistake that destroyed the combination of academic freedom and thoroughness. It says a reversal is possible because most of the requirements are not binding under EU law. After the switch at state level, an initiative in the Bundesrat would push for a nationwide exit.

The AfD wants to set up a state funding scheme alongside BAföG (federal student aid) that awards scholarships for degree studies and doctorates. They would be granted purely on academic performance, regardless of parental income. In the platform's view, BAföG hands out money without regard to academic performance and misuses tax money.

The AfD wants a new scholarship paid by the state. A scholarship is money for studying. Only performance would count. Parents' income would not matter.

The scholarships would be awarded through a selection process that looks only at academic performance. Recipients would have to provide ongoing proof of performance. The platform justifies the proposal by saying many good students have to work alongside their studies. It says BAföG depends on unrelated criteria such as parental income.

The AfD wants to replace the numerus clausus (admission based on school-leaving grades) with entrance exams. When there are too many applicants, universities would test who is suited to the subject in question. The platform says the Abitur grade is not a suitable measure of aptitude for a particular field of study.

Today the Abitur grade often decides who gets a place at university. The Abitur is the German school-leaving exam. The AfD wants to change that. Universities would hold entrance exams. The best in the exam get the place.

The change would be made through state legislation. The Abitur would then only entitle applicants to sit the exam. The exams would test the specific requirements of each subject. The AfD expects this to raise performance levels in all fields of study.

The AfD wants to pay university researchers better while setting higher academic requirements. Fixed-term contracts would become less common. The platform argues that low pay drives the best people away from universities.

The AfD wants to pay researchers more money. In return they would have to meet higher standards. There would be fewer temporary contracts. This way the best would stay at the university.

According to the platform, researchers in the qualification phase sometimes live at welfare level. As a result, mainly mediocre staff stay at universities, which in turn does not justify higher pay. The AfD wants to break this cycle with stricter requirements and higher salaries. Fewer fixed-term contracts are meant to give researchers the planning security needed for in-depth research.

The AfD wants a university reform that restricts the say of the various university groups and above all reduces the influence of student councils. In its view, professors should carry the most weight because knowledge and education cannot be negotiated democratically.

Many groups have a say at universities today. The AfD wants to change that. Professors would decide the most. Student councils would have less influence.

The platform rejects the so-called group university, in which mid-level academic staff, students and other employees share in decisions. It traces this model back to the 1968 movement and sees it as one cause of the decline of the education system. In the AfD's view, the many committees create bureaucracy and decisions unrelated to scholarship. The platform describes student councils as run by a small, mostly far-left group that does not speak for all students.

The AfD wants a state government under its leadership to examine how postcolonial approaches at universities can be pushed back without violating academic freedom. In the program's view, postcolonialism is not scholarship but a political project directed against European identity.

The AfD rejects postcolonialism. That is a school of thought at universities. It studies how the colonial era shaped culture and thinking. The AfD wants to check how to push it back. Academic freedom should stay protected.

The program compares postcolonialism to gender studies and attributes a destructive aim to it. According to the AfD, works by European thinkers and writers are only criticized and no longer studied affirmatively, which impoverishes the humanities. An AfD state government would examine what means exist to push this current back. Colonial history that also includes the viewpoint of former colonies is to keep its place at universities, the program says.

The AfD wants to found a state institute for critical research on Islam outside the universities, intended to set the standard nationwide. In the party's view, today's Islamic studies are uncritical and supply politicians with favorable expert opinions.

The AfD wants to found a new state research institute. It should study Islam critically. It should not belong to a university. The AfD thinks today's research on Islam is not critical enough. The institute should advise politicians.

The program complains that a once rigorous critical tradition of Islam research was driven out of universities for reasons of political correctness. It says this was replaced by a sociological rather than philological discipline committed to the model of a multicultural society. Given the millions of Muslims in the country, the AfD sees a need for research that assesses Islamic communities objectively and gives politics orientation. The institute would be a state body outside the university system.

The AfD wants to fund universities so that research no longer depends on externally acquired grants. It argues that funding bodies attach political conditions to their money and that dissenting research goes unfunded.

Researchers today often have to win money from foundations and other funders. This is called third-party funding. The AfD wants to change that. Universities should get enough fixed money from the state. The AfD thinks this makes research freer.

According to the program, research funding has been shifted more and more toward third-party grants over recent decades. Funders such as the DFG (German Research Foundation), industry foundations and political foundations are said to support only what fits the political mainstream. As examples of disadvantaged research, the AfD cites dissenting positions on climate change, immigration, German identity and Covid. In its view, sufficient core funding would secure academic freedom.

The AfD wants to preserve the distinction between practice-oriented Fachhochschulen (universities of applied sciences) and research-oriented universities. Fachhochschulen may award doctorates, but those earned there independently would be marked with the suffix F.H.

Germany has Fachhochschulen and universities. Fachhochschulen are schools of applied sciences and are closer to practice. Universities do more theory and basic research. The AfD wants to keep this difference. A doctorate from a Fachhochschule should carry the letters F.H.

The program regards the coexistence of both types of institution as a distinctive strength of the German academic system. Fachhochschulen stand for practical orientation, universities for theory and basic research. The right to award doctorates can be given to Fachhochschulen, the program says. If the doctorate is not done in cooperation with a university, the title would carry the note F.H.

The AfD wants to introduce a voluntary "trades year" for school leavers. It is meant to raise the profile of the skilled trades as a career and, in the party's view, to counter an excessive preference for university study.

The AfD wants a voluntary year in the skilled trades. Young people can do it after school. They get to know four different trades. The AfD says too many young people go to university. It says too few learn a trade.

The platform says the number of apprentices in the skilled trades has stayed low for years and blames a policy that favors university study. During the trades year, school leavers would try out four different trades over twelve months. They would gain hands-on experience, get to know several businesses, and receive help in choosing a career. Businesses and interns could both find out whether a later apprenticeship would be a good fit.