FDP on education

The FDP wants uniform quality standards for daycare centers (Kitas) across Germany. These include staffing ratios based on actual need, less red tape, and teams drawn from several professions. The aim is reliable hours and high-quality care.

The FDP wants the same rules for all daycare centers in Germany. There should be enough staff for the children. Daycare centers should have less paperwork. Parents should be able to rely on the opening hours.

The staffing ratio is to account for administrative tasks and absences as well as teaching work. Multi-professional teams are meant to relieve childcare workers, and home-based daycare is to be strengthened. Responsibility for daycare would move from the Family Ministry to the Federal Education Ministry so that the whole educational path sits in one place. A Startchancen program for daycare would support centers with many socially disadvantaged children or an acute shortage of places. STEM education is also to get more room in early childhood.

The FDP wants every preschool-age child nationwide to take a mandatory language test. Children would only start school once their German is good enough to follow lessons. Where needed, language support would be compulsory.

All children should take a language test before school. The test should be required. Children should start school only when they know enough German. Children who need help must take part in language support.

The tests are to be age-appropriate and apply to all children. Language levels would be assessed in examinations held ahead of school enrollment. If a child needs support, compulsory language training of at least two years before the start of compulsory schooling would follow. The program argues that language opens up opportunities.

The FDP wants to fundamentally modernize initial and continuing training for childcare staff in order to tackle the shortage of skilled workers in daycare. Training would no longer cost tuition and would be adequately paid.

Daycare centers do not have enough trained staff. The FDP wants to renew the training for childcare workers. The training should cost nothing. Trainees should get paid.

Besides free tuition and pay, the states are to offer more training places. The training would be split into modules. The FDP wants this to bring quality up to a uniformly high level nationwide.

The FDP calls for a fundamental reform of education federalism with uniform standards and a stronger federal role. The Kultusministerkonferenz (the states' conference of education ministers) would be abolished as a decision-making body and replaced by a federal education council. Uniform final exams are meant to make school diplomas comparable nationwide.

Today the states mostly decide about schools. The FDP wants the federal government to have more say. There should be the same rules for all of Germany. The final school exam should be the same everywhere. A new council should replace the meeting of state ministers.

Funding between the federal government and the states would be rearranged so the federal level can pay for more education tasks. Until then, it would support projects within the limits of the constitution, and states could count only new money as their share. The federal government could also cooperate with just some of the states. The federal education council would include experts from research and practice as well as parent and business representatives. The FDP also calls for school autonomy laws, grades from third grade at the latest, out-of-school learning sites such as student labs, and a campus for education innovation to bring AI-supported learning into schools.

The FDP calls for renovating Germany's school buildings and modernizing their technology through a Digitalpakt 2.0. At the same time, schools would get more decision-making power and a budget of their own.

Many school buildings are in bad shape. The FDP wants them repaired. Schools should get better technology. Every school should get its own money. With it, the school can decide more on its own.

The Digitalpakt 2.0 between the federal government and the states is also meant to anchor digital teaching in teacher training. The FDP considers the existing agreement inadequate because, in its view, the states add hardly any extra money. With the opportunity budget, schools would decide for themselves on their profile, how teaching is organized, multi-professional teams and staffing. Each school could also choose whether its Gymnasium track lasts eight or nine years.

The FDP wants to introduce economics and computer science as school subjects nationwide and update curricula. Teacher training would become a dual program combining study and practice, and teachers would be paid based on performance. Visits to memorial sites would be mandatory for students.

The FDP wants new school subjects: economics and computer science. Future teachers should get more practice during their studies. Good teachers should earn more. Students should have to visit a Holocaust memorial site.

Curricula are to give more room to economics and finance, STEM, democracy and politics, and media literacy. The dual teaching degree would link theory and practice and stress digital and AI skills; a mobility guarantee would make it easier to move between states. Lessons are to deal more with antisemitism and other forms of hatred, including Israel's history. Visits to a Holocaust memorial, a synagogue, and a memorial on Germany's division and East Germany would be compulsory. The FDP wants to advance the German-Israeli youth exchange organization.

The FDP wants to attract more young people to vocational training. Its plans include a career orientation year, expanded scholarships and Aufstiegs-BAföG (aid for advanced vocational training), and an exchange service for trainees.

The FDP wants more young people to do vocational training. There should be a year for trying out jobs. There should be more scholarships for trainees. Trainees should find it easier to go abroad.

The Excellence Initiative for Vocational Education would be developed further, and vocational training centers would grow into regional innovation and start-up hubs. The FDP wants to strengthen career guidance such as trainee ambassadors and youth employment agencies. A German Vocational Exchange Service would promote stays abroad in vocational training. Aufstiegs-BAföG would also cover a second advanced qualification at the same level. The public sector is to better recognize vocational training and practical experience, and foreign qualifications would be recognized faster and fully digitally.

The FDP sees learning as a lifelong process and wants to support continuing education. A new Lebenschancen-BAföG (life chances grant) would cover training costs, and a personal Freiraumkonto account would allow saving for it free of taxes and social contributions.

People should be able to learn all their lives. The FDP wants a new kind of financial aid for this. It is called Lebenschancen-BAföG. People should also be able to save for training without paying taxes on it.

The Lebenschancen-BAföG would pay for course fees, time off for education and childcare. The Freiraumkonto would let people save money for continuing education and educational leave. The FDP also wants easier access to smaller, flexible education certificates.

The FDP wants the choice of degree not to depend on a student's family background and would therefore make BAföG (student aid) independent of parental income. Tax-free education savings and more stays abroad through Erasmus would be added.

Today student aid depends on the parents' money. The FDP wants to change that. All students should be able to get help. Parents and grandparents should save for education without paying taxes. School students should also go abroad with Erasmus.

BAföG would be built as a modular system. The FDP wants to strengthen the education loan program in the short term. Savings by parents and grandparents for children's education would be tax-free, similar to the planned retirement savings account. School students could spend half a school year elsewhere in Europe through Erasmus+, whatever their parents earn. For trainees, Erasmus+ and the “Ausbildung Weltweit” program would grow.

The FDP wants to strengthen the whole research chain, from basic science to application in companies. A research freedom act would ease fusion research, genetic engineering and stem cell research. Germany is also to become one of the world's leading locations for artificial intelligence.

The FDP wants to strengthen research in Germany. A new law should give researchers more freedom. This covers nuclear fusion and genetic engineering, for example. Companies should pay less tax when they do research. Germany should be a leader in artificial intelligence.

The plans include public-private partnerships, stronger tax incentives for research and quickly founding the German Agency for Transfer and Innovation. The rules on genetic engineering, which the FDP sees as an obstacle, would be reformed. Priorities would include Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, women's health, research on aging, and physics and quantum physics. The FDP wants to apply the EU's AI Act in a more innovation-friendly way. A research data act would simplify access to research data and put it on a firm legal footing.