CDU on education

The CDU wants to make the last year of daycare free of charge and compulsory. It would serve as a preschool year with a curriculum to prepare children for primary school, and early education overall would get more binding goals.

The last year of daycare should be free. All children would have to attend it. It should prepare children well for school. The CDU says it is very important that all children learn German well.

For the preschool year, the current education plan would become a formal curriculum, with the steps to be worked out with daycare operators. Saxony's education plan would be revised and given binding goals by age group, focusing on health, language, and social development. Two years before school entry, a broad educational assessment would take place so children can get support in time. According to the platform, learning German is the top priority for all children, and early foreign-language learning is also welcomed.

The CDU stands by the tiered school system and wants to strengthen the Oberschule (non-academic secondary school) as its central pillar. Grades, including grades for conduct and effort, would stay, because the party says diplomas should stand for proven achievement.

Saxony has different types of schools. The CDU wants to keep it that way. The Oberschule, a type of secondary school, should be strengthened. Grades should stay. This includes grades for behavior and effort.

The Oberschule would focus more on practical content; the CDU sees it as an answer to the shortage of skilled workers and apprentices. The platform ties the school system to a clear expectation of achievement and defends grading. Primary schools would focus even more on reading, writing, and math, which children should master by the end of fourth grade. Support for children with dyslexia and dyscalculia is to improve, and the party will examine recognizing dyscalculia as a specific learning disorder.

The CDU calls recruiting new teachers the main task of education policy for the next five years. Teachers would continue to be hired as civil servants so that Saxony can compete with other German states.

Saxony needs more teachers. The CDU says this is the most important task in education. Teachers should still be able to become civil servants. This should keep Saxony attractive for teachers. All regions should have enough teachers.

Besides civil-servant status, the platform names performance-based promotions as a way to stay competitive. Training for teacher candidates is to be goal-oriented, and the profession should gain more standing and recognition. The CDU puts special weight on spreading teachers as evenly as possible across Saxony's regions.

The CDU wants inclusion wherever it is possible while keeping and developing special-needs schools (Förderschulen). Additional staff such as school assistants and school psychologists would relieve teachers.

Children with and without disabilities should learn together where possible. But special schools should stay. More helpers should work in schools. These include school assistants and school psychologists. They should take some work off teachers.

The platform stresses support for students with impairments and wants to maintain special-needs schools and their work. Support for gifted students is also to be part of the whole education system, starting in daycare. The multi-professional teams include school assistants, practical advisers, school psychologists, and school administrative assistants. These staff are meant to support teachers, not replace them.

The CDU wants to leave more educational and financial decisions to the schools themselves. Each school would get a single lump-sum budget that combines the funds it receives today.

Schools should decide more things on their own. Each school should get one overall budget. This is one pot of money that the school controls itself. The CDU says people on site know best what is needed.

The party argues that decisions about needs and spending are best made on site. Curricula and teaching methods would be reviewed to see where individual schools can be given more leeway. The lump-sum budget would also cover funds for all-day programs, which the CDU wants to continue.

The CDU wants digital teaching and learning materials to be a normal part of school life, alongside analog methods. Schools would receive learning apps and intelligent tutoring systems, backed by media education.

Digital learning tools should be normal in class. Schools should get learning apps for this. There should also be programs that adapt to each child. Children should also learn how to use media well.

With the first Digitalpakt (federal school digitalization program) largely carried out, the platform sees the next step as anchoring digital tools firmly in teaching. It aims for a mix of analog and digital instruction. The CDU wants to push the development of adaptive and intelligent tutoring systems. Media literacy is also to include a critical look at excessive use of digital devices.

The CDU wants career guidance to start earlier and be more intensive at all types of schools. Schools would work more closely with trades, industry, and the employment agency and offer more practical learning.

Students should get to know jobs early. This should happen at all types of schools. Schools should work with companies and the employment agency. There should be more practice days in companies.

The platform points to the growing number of training and study options as the reason. It plans practice days in craft businesses, small and medium-sized companies, and in social and care work. At Oberschulen, pilot projects and teaching trials with a strong practical focus would be expanded. Young people's interest in nature and technology is to be sparked early, and second-chance schools for adults are recognized as important.

The CDU wants to keep supporting cities and towns with state funding to build and modernize schools. The platform treats modern, well-equipped buildings as a precondition for good education.

The CDU wants to keep giving towns money for school buildings. Towns are in charge of school buildings. Schools in rural areas should get the most help. Vocational schools also matter to the CDU here.

School construction is a mandatory task of municipalities, which run the schools. The state is to provide them with sufficient funding for it. The focus is on rural areas and on the restructuring of vocational school centers.

The CDU wants to support recognized adult-education providers so that their courses match demand. By the end of the decade, Saxony is to reach the average of all German states in the density of continuing education.

Adults should be able to keep learning too. The CDU wants to support the groups that offer courses. Saxony should have as many courses as the rest of Germany. This should happen by 2030.

The platform argues that lifelong learning and adult education are becoming more important for individuals, businesses and society. Support is to go to the recognized continuing-education providers. The target is the national average in continuing-education density, meaning the volume of courses relative to population.

The CDU wants to draw up a strategy for dual vocational training together with businesses and to equip vocational schools better. Training is to be tailored more closely to young people's abilities so that no one is left without a qualification and the demand for skilled workers is met.

The CDU wants to strengthen job training. It will make a plan together with companies. Vocational schools should get better equipment. Strong trainees should be able to finish faster. Weaker trainees should be able to do a shorter training that fits them.

An equipment drive for vocational schools is planned. High-performing trainees are to be able to shorten their training, and dual training combined with the Abitur (university entrance diploma) is to be expanded; for weaker trainees, the CDU wants to promote two-year training tracks among companies. Schools and the Federal Employment Agency are to share data to reach young people who leave school without a next step. The party aims to abolish tuition fees for full-time school-based training, wants more dormitory places for trainees, and backs continuing the federal program "Junges Wohnen" (housing for young people). Hands-on programs such as an extended pre-vocational year are also meant to give young immigrants a path, and an education ID is to accompany trainees.

The CDU wants to align teacher training more closely with what each school type and subject needs. Training is to move further into the regions, and new groups are to gain access to teaching degrees.

Saxony needs teachers for all schools and subjects. The CDU wants to guide teacher training better. Teachers should also be trained outside the big cities. People who went to an Oberschule should be able to become Oberschule teachers. A prep course can help with that.

Training in the regions is to be expanded together with the universities of applied sciences, mainly for rural areas. The focus is on vocational school teachers and trainee teachers. The CDU wants to attract graduates of vocational high schools to teaching. Graduates of the Oberschule (non-academic secondary school) are to be able to enter a degree program for Oberschule teachers directly, for example via a preparatory course.

The CDU plans a science innovation law that gives the two new large-scale research centers, DZA and CTC, more leeway. Research results are to reach Saxon companies more readily, and microelectronics research becomes a priority.

The CDU wants a new law for research. Two big research centers should be able to work more freely. Ideas from research should reach companies in Saxony. The CDU also wants to support start-ups from universities. Research on computer chips is especially important to it.

The law is to create good conditions for the German Center for Astrophysics and the Center for the Transformation of Chemistry and is modeled on Germany's Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation. Transfer to regional firms and spin-offs from universities and institutes are to be supported. The state will co-finance projects under the European Chips Act, and fusion research is to get more attention. A Digital University of Saxony, run jointly by all universities, is to drive their digitalization, with OPAL as the central platform. Zwickau's university is to focus on the All Electric Society, Mittweida is to become a cybersecurity center, and the biotechnology strategy will be updated.

The CDU wants to amend the higher education law: student councils are to become student parliaments and general student committees. Students are also to regain the right to leave the Verfasste Studentenschaft (statutory student body).

The CDU wants to change how students are represented. There should be student parliaments. Students should be able to leave the student body again. The student body is the shared voice of all students at a university. Student groups should get clear rules in the law.

Student groups at universities are to be regulated by law and recognized by university leadership. The Verfasste Studentenschaft is the statutory body representing all students at a university, who belong to it automatically. The CDU wants to support the student services organizations, especially in rural areas, so that modern housing is available also for students with children.