BSW on education

The BSW wants mandatory German tests for all children from age three. If gaps are found, attending daycare or preschool should become compulsory. It also wants a binding kindergarten curriculum and compulsory preschool education for all children.

All children aged three and up should take a German test. This should be required. If a child's German is weak, daycare becomes required. Kindergartens should get a set study plan.

The program sees language skills as the basis for integration and successful learning. The BSW wants to promote more German courses and give more recognition to volunteer teaching. Language support in kindergartens and schools should improve in quality and quantity. The kindergarten curriculum is meant to ensure uniform basic skills before children start school.

The BSW wants primary schools to focus again on reading, writing, and arithmetic and on the rules of standard German, including a ban on gender-inclusive language. Smartphones and tablets should be kept out of classrooms through the end of primary school. Thuringia should become the first state where all primary school leavers master these skills.

The BSW wants kids to learn reading, writing, and math well. Gender-inclusive language should be banned in schools. Phones and tablets should stay out of primary classrooms. Kids should learn proper cursive writing.

The BSW rejects learning to write by ear and teaching print letters before cursive. A standard cursive script should again be the norm for all primary pupils. Digital skills are considered important, but analog learning should come first in primary school. Math, science, and vocational orientation toward the trades should get more weight.

The BSW considers switching school types after fourth grade too early and wants children to learn together longer. At the same time, it wants to keep the tiered school system and boost the Regelschule (secondary school) and the intermediate diploma. Creative, artistic, and musical learning should be promoted.

Children should learn together for longer. The BSW thinks switching schools after grade 4 is too early. Different school types should still exist. The Regelschule should get stronger.

The tiered school system is meant to meet different learning needs. The intermediate school diploma (Mittlere Reife) should get more attention. School and after-school programs should foster hands-on, artistic, and musical skills. Learning should be practical and prepare students for life after school.

The BSW wants free lunch for all children in daycare centers and primary schools. The demand applies regardless of parents' income.

All kids in daycare and primary school should get free lunch. This should apply to every child. Parents' income does not matter.

The offer should cover all children in daycare centers and primary schools. In the program, it is linked to better basic skills and equal starting chances. No further conditions are attached.

The BSW wants a binding, practice-oriented curriculum for teacher training degrees. Thuringia should become an attractive employer for teachers, with promotions and career paths. More staff, more funding, and less paperwork should prevent canceled classes.

Teachers should get better training. Their degree should follow a fixed plan. Teachers should get promoted more easily. More staff should help so no classes get canceled.

Teacher training should be designed as an academic professional education, like medical school. Career changers should find it easier to enter teaching through work-study programs and recognition of foreign degrees. Uniform administration and planning software should relieve schools of paperwork. The education system should receive more money. Only someone with many years of experience in education or academia should become education minister.

The BSW wants to strengthen inclusive education and provide enough staff so that children with disabilities can attend regular classes. Children with learning difficulties such as dyslexia or dyscalculia should be supported through a statewide network of therapists.

Kids with disabilities should be able to join regular classes. This needs more staff. Some kids struggle with reading or math. They should get more therapy options.

Better inclusive schooling should give young people with disabilities a good start in working life and a self-determined life. The therapist network should be built across Thuringia. All children should have access to it when needed. The program also refers to the existing "Budget für Ausbildung" and "Budget für Arbeit" programs (training and work budgets for people with disabilities).

The BSW wants to keep special-needs schools and give support centers more lasting backing. New tools are meant to help people with disabilities move into vocational training and the regular job market, partly to address labor shortages.

The BSW wants to keep special-needs schools. Support centers should get more help. People with disabilities should find training more easily. They should also find regular jobs more easily. This should also help with missing skilled workers.

In the program's view, existing measures have too rarely led people with disabilities into completed vocational training or jobs on the regular labor market. The BSW therefore wants to create new instruments for inclusive transitions. Support centers are to receive more sustained funding, following the principles set out in the education chapter. Special-needs schools are to be preserved.

The BSW wants practical digital and media literacy to carry more weight in teaching after primary school. New teaching concepts and up-to-date technology are to be brought into schools for this purpose.

Children should know how to use computers and media well. They should learn more about this after primary school. This needs new ways of teaching. Schools should also get modern equipment.

The program justifies this with growing digitalization. The focus is on the years after primary school, while primary school itself is meant to concentrate on analog learning. New teaching and learning concepts and modern technical equipment are to make this possible.

The BSW wants to combine education and science in a single ministry and to maintain and expand the research landscape. Mandatory permanent full-time positions are to be created for ongoing tasks at universities, since the program sees many mid-level academic jobs as precarious.

Education and science should be in one ministry. The BSW wants to make research in Thuringia stronger. Many university staff only have short contracts. Permanent tasks should get permanent full-time jobs. Young researchers could then plan better.

The state is to pay its financial share of the federal-state Excellence Initiative. Conditions for teaching and research at universities are to be secured and expanded, along with profile building and international exchange. An appropriate number of mandatory full-time positions is to be created for permanent tasks in teaching and in managing large equipment and collections. Universities are to draw up staffing plans offering young academics reliable career paths.