SPD on education

The SPD wants a Bavarian continuing education law that entitles employees and apprentices to time off for job-related training. Training would additionally be financed through levy-based funds.

The SPD wants a new law on job training. Workers and apprentices should get time off for courses. This should be their right. Works councils should be allowed to propose courses. Shared funds should help pay for courses.

The entitlement to leave would be written into law. Works councils and staff councils would get a right of initiative for qualified training measures, meaning they could start such measures themselves. Regional or sector-based training funds would be fed by a levy and pay for qualification beyond existing labor market support.

The SPD wants to guarantee every young person in Bavaria a vocational training place and pay for it through a levy on companies. Vocational education is to be free of charge up to the master craftsman level, as the party sees it as equal to academic degrees.

Every young person in Bavaria should get vocational training. The SPD wants to guarantee this. Companies pay into a shared fund for it. Training should cost nothing, up to the master craftsman level. There should be more dorms for apprentices.

Besides the guarantee, the SPD wants to fund more support during training so that as many people as possible finish. Inter-company training centers are to be approved faster and funded long term to keep distances short and strengthen rural areas. Secondary students in all school types would complete a mandatory internship in a skilled trade or other training occupation. Dorms for apprentices and students would get more funding and be opened to both groups.

The SPD wants to equip vocational schools better, recruit more teachers and expand school social work. Uniform rights are to apply to students in dual study programs. The party argues that practical and theoretical training are of equal value.

The SPD wants better vocational schools. They should get more money and more teachers. Students with another first language should get courses in job-related German. They should get more time in exams. Students in work-study programs should be paid fairly.

The plan includes more funding, also for staff trained in inclusion, and a student council at every vocational school linked to workplace bodies and unions. Dual-study students would get adequate pay and a cap on required time in the company; unions would get access to vocational schools. University-affiliated training schools for future vocational teachers would be expanded and specialist teachers moved to a higher pay grade. Also planned are more courses in technical language, a better staffing ratio in school social work and legally sound accommodations in exams. Skills gained abroad or through practical experience are to be recognized.

The SPD wants to introduce the Gemeinschaftsschule (comprehensive school) as an additional school type alongside the existing ones so that children learn together longer. Until then, the transfer report card would be dropped; parents and teachers would decide on a child's school path in a mandatory meeting.

The SPD wants a new type of school, the Gemeinschaftsschule. All children learn together there. The other school types stay. The transfer report card after primary school should go away. Parents and teachers then talk together about the right school.

The program argues that success at school depends heavily on parents' level of education. In class, skills such as teamwork, critical thinking, and media literacy are to get more weight, as are project work and self-directed learning. For the SPD this leads to other forms of assessment such as portfolios and learning progress talks. Curricula would follow the principles of "Education for Sustainable Development."

The SPD wants to cap classes at 20 children in the medium term and give schools additional specialist and administrative staff. Teacher training would be restructured, and all teachers would be paid at the A13 civil-service grade from the start of their careers.

The SPD wants smaller classes. A class should have 20 children at most. Schools should get more experts, such as school psychologists. All teachers should earn the same. Schools with many poor children should get more money.

Classes with children who have special needs would be smaller still. Multi-professional teams of school psychologists, social workers, and special-needs educators would support teaching, while more administrative posts and IT support would relieve teachers. Teacher training would begin with basic studies not tied to a school type, include more practical experience, and end with a master's degree by school level. An investment program for municipalities is meant to modernize school buildings and keep small schools open. School budgets would be steered toward schools with many disadvantaged students and toward structurally weak regions; Mittelschulen (lower secondary schools) would get better resources.

The SPD wants education to be free of charge from daycare through to a master craftsman certificate or master's degree. Learning materials, including digital devices, would be free for students so that parents' income does not determine education.

The SPD wants education to cost nothing. This goes from daycare to university or master craftsman training. Books and tablets should also be free for students. Teachers should get work devices.

The party rejects education fees as a matter of principle. Teachers are to be supplied regularly with work devices. The SPD wants to speed up the digitalization of schools by having the state support the municipal school operators through funding programs.

The SPD wants to create a legal right to a place at an integrated all-day school, including beyond primary school. All students would get a healthy breakfast and lunch at no cost. According to the program, the goal is fairer opportunities.

The SPD wants every child to have a right to a place at an all-day school. This also applies after primary school. All students get breakfast and lunch for free. All children should learn to swim.

The SPD sees the ideal as an all-day school where learning, practice, and rest alternate through the day. Other existing forms of after-school care would remain and be improved in quality. Funding rules for school buildings and financing would be adapted to the space and staffing needed. Every school should offer room for sports, music, creative hobbies, and craft skills. Student participation is to grow, and the SMV (student council) would become a representative body with real rights to have a say.

The SPD wants to strengthen universities' core funding so that teaching and research depend less on third-party grants. Staffing structures would be reformed so that ongoing tasks are filled with permanent positions.

The SPD wants to give universities more steady money. Tasks that always exist should have permanent jobs. Young researchers should be able to plan better. There should be more dorm places for students and apprentices.

A framework agreement with universities would set appropriate contract lengths and clear qualification goals for doctoral candidates, plus predictable career paths after the doctorate. The federal women professors program would be topped up with state money. Alongside STEM subjects, the SPD also wants to support social sciences and humanities and to add study places in health, nursing, social work, and German as a second language. Digital education centers at universities would also support schools, museums, and libraries. Student and apprentice services organizations would get larger subsidies to add dorm places, keep rents stable, and expand counseling.

The SPD wants to introduce a statutory student body at Bavaria's universities and four-way parity, under which four university groups hold equal weight on committees. Women's representatives would get more powers, and studying would become more accessible.

The SPD wants more say for people at universities. Students should get their own representation set in law. All groups should have the same number of votes on committees. Women's representatives should get more rights. Victims of harassment should get permanent advice offices.

Staff councils and doctoral candidates' representatives are to get a stronger position. Multi-year commitments for the whole university, such as target agreements, would be negotiated, approved, and monitored by elected bodies from the outset. Women's representatives would get, among other things, full voting rights on the university council. The SPD wants to support full-time complaint and counseling offices for sexual harassment and discrimination. Entrances, escape routes, and digital teaching are to become barrier-free.

The SPD wants more civic education in class and a required visit to a memorial site or a place of democracy for every student. Civic education is to run from daycare into adulthood. The platform says this is meant to anchor democratic values and counter far-right tendencies.

The SPD wants more civic education in schools. Every student should visit a memorial site once. A memorial site remembers, for example, the victims of the Nazi era. Even children in daycare should learn about democracy. Adults should get courses too.

The share of civic education in class is to rise, and every student is to visit a memorial site or a place of democracy at least once. University chairs for civic education are to be expanded everywhere, and the subject is to become a fixed part of teacher training for all school types. The SPD backs a joint federal-state training drive for educational staff in daycare centers and schools. Memorial sites on the Nazi dictatorship and places of Jewish life and of other persecuted groups are to keep receiving support and funding. Youth and adult education is to get steadily rising subsidies, and initiatives for diversity are to be supported.

The SPD wants education in Bavaria to be free of fees regardless of citizenship and more strongly oriented toward Europe. English would be a focus throughout schooling, and every student would get at least one free trip abroad. A housing guarantee is planned for international students, researchers and teaching staff.

The SPD wants education in Bavaria to cost nothing. This should apply to everyone, no matter which country they come from. English should matter in every grade. Every school child should get one free week-long trip abroad.

English is to play a central role from first grade through graduation and also in continuing education. The study trip abroad for students would last one week and be free of charge. The SPD wants to expand the European dimension in school curricula and involve young people more in European processes. Student exchanges as well as school and town partnerships across borders are to be made easier. The Bologna Process provisions on the social dimension and democratization of higher education are to be implemented.