Freie Wähler on education

The Free Voters want to introduce Bildungsurlaub (paid educational leave) in Saxony. Further training and degrees earned later in life should be used more, helped by advice and information, including on financing.

The Free Voters want educational leave in Saxony. That is time off work for learning. People should be able to earn degrees later in life. There should be more advice for this. The advice should also explain how to pay for it.

The platform considers the options for further training and late degrees in Saxony to be very good. Information and counseling services should ensure that more people use them and can pay for them. In addition, educational leave, meaning time off work for training, would be introduced in Saxony as well. The party argues that it makes more economic sense to train and retain skilled workers at home.

The Free Voters want to abolish fees for nurseries and kindergartens and pay for them from taxes. All daycare children are also to get a free lunch. The platform justifies this with equal starting chances for all children.

The Free Voters want nursery and kindergarten to be free. Taxes should pay for it. Lunch at daycare should also cost nothing. All children should have equally good chances when they start school.

The staffing ratio is to drop to 4.0 in nurseries and to 9.0 in kindergartens. In rural areas, care hours are to be available according to need. Inclusion and integration are to be strengthened from an early age. Daycare centers and elementary schools should be close to where children live.

The Free Voters want to recruit more teachers and introduce a dual teacher-training degree that provides classroom practice early on. They also call for more school social work, more money and better digital equipment for schools.

The Free Voters want more teachers in schools. Student teachers should work in schools early on. Schools should have more social workers and psychologists. Schools should get more money and better technology.

The state is to forecast teacher demand more accurately and temporarily hire more teachers than needed to avoid shortages. Teachers are to be relieved of non-teaching tasks. A fixed minimum share of the annual budget is to go to education, and the Digitalpakt (federal-state school digitization program) is to be implemented including infrastructure and maintenance. Student transportation is to be free and a state responsibility. Civic education is to get more room in the curriculum to make young people more resistant to extremist influences. Schools are to get more freedom in how they organize themselves, and municipalities more influence as school operators, including in choosing principals.

The Free Voters want mandatory German language tests for children before they start school, along with language preparation classes. The platform sees the growing share of children with a different native language as the main cause of problems with basic skills.

The Free Voters want a German test before school starts. All children must take it. Children with little German first go to a preparation class. The party says many pupils learn poorly because they know too little German.

According to the platform, the share of elementary school children who speak a language other than German at home is growing. The party sees this as the main reason for poor study results in reading, writing and math. It calls for countermeasures through tests and preparation classes. School social work is also meant to support integration, especially in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

The Free Voters want to move the recommendation for Gymnasium (academic-track school) or Oberschule from grade 4 to grade 6. In the platform's view, the decision in grade 4 comes too early for many children.

Today the choice of school type is made in grade 4. The Free Voters think that is too early. The recommendation should come in grade 6. Children then have more time to develop.

Grades 5 and 6 are to become an orientation stage. It is to be designed so that the requirements of the Kultusministerkonferenz (conference of state education ministers) on minimum weekly hours for the academic track are still met. The platform describes the later recommendation as a target model.

The Free Voters want to raise the standing of vocational training relative to university study and fund it more strongly. The platform calls dual training (combined workplace and school training) proven and sees it as a foundation of the economy.

The Free Voters want to strengthen job training. It should count as much as a university degree. Vocational schools should get more money and better technology. Young people should be able to train close to home.

Vocational schools are to get better funding and equipment, and trainees are to choose their vocational school center freely. The image of dual training is to improve through cooperation between schools, chambers and guilds and through social media. Young people who struggle to find a training place are to get special attention; inclusion is also to be strengthened. Vocational qualifications are to be recognized more often for university admission. New forms of learning are to be reviewed and introduced.

The Free Voters want to slim down curricula, focus them more on everyday skills and introduce a modular system of subjects and courses. In addition, Saxony is to push in the Bundesrat for more uniform state rules and a nationwide central Abitur exam.

The Free Voters want to change what schools teach. Pupils should learn more for everyday life. They should be able to choose more subjects themselves. The Abitur exam should be the same all over Germany.

The modular system is to follow examples from the United States and Denmark and allow more electives, deeper study of them and dropping subjects. The platform justifies this with the changing labor market due to digitization and with complaints that school does not prepare students well for work. Media education and sports are to get more weight. In the platform's view, Germany can no longer afford 16 different education systems. A Bundesrat initiative is to align the rules for the upper secondary level and bring a uniform final exam.

The Free Voters want Saxony to launch a Bundesrat initiative for BAföG (student aid) that no longer depends on parents' income. Universities are to receive reliable core funding, in part so they can do research independently of industry.

The Free Voters want to change BAföG. BAföG is state money for students. It should no longer depend on what parents earn. Universities should get more steady money from the state.

BAföG is also to continue between the bachelor's degree and admission to a master's program, and students with side jobs are not to be worse off for tax purposes. Core funding is to rise with student numbers and research spending; a medium-term plan is to end the renovation backlog in university buildings. Industry influence on research is to be limited and corporate funding critically monitored. Fixed-term contracts for academic staff are to become less common. The Berufsakademie, dual study programs and part-time degrees are to be expanded, along with affordable student housing. Students who drop out are to move into dual vocational training in good time.