SPD on education

The SPD wants to strengthen Bremen as a location for science and innovation and turn it into the leading technology city in the north. To do so, it is counting on digitalization, artificial intelligence, and robotics. The University of Bremen is to regain its status as a University of Excellence.

The SPD wants Bremen to be strong in research and technology. Bremen should become the main technology city in the north. The SPD is counting on digital tools, artificial intelligence, and robots. The university should become a University of Excellence again. That is an award for very good research.

The program names digitalization, artificial intelligence, robotics, and other future technologies as priorities. Bremen is to remain first-rate in science and innovation. For the university, the stated goal is to win back its excellence status. The program points to the existing top-level research at the university, the other higher-education institutions, and scientific institutes.

The SPD wants a state-level continuing education drive to supplement federal funding and close gaps. Workers are to be able to advance in their careers, switch occupations, and catch up on vocational qualifications. Where change eliminates tasks, jobs are to be preserved wherever possible.

The world of work is changing a lot. So the SPD wants to support more job training for adults. People should be able to move up or change jobs. They should also be able to earn a qualification later in life. This should make sure there are enough skilled workers.

The program wants to make consistent use of federal instruments under Social Code Books II and III and the federal law on funding for advanced vocational training, and it welcomes the federal government's plans for more continuing education. A drive by the state itself is to supplement this funding. Training and job protection are to keep workers in the regular labor market as digitalization and climate protection change what work involves. Vocational and continuing training are to be developed substantially to attract skilled workers, especially for the skilled trades. The SPD also sees this as an economic policy matter, since in its view a location's success depends on skilled workers.

The SPD wants to narrow the gap in apprenticeship places and set up a training fund in Bremen for that purpose. The fund would support companies that train apprentices and pay for cross-company support services in dual vocational training.

Bremen has too few training places. So the SPD wants a training fund. This is a pot of money for job training. It helps companies that train young people. It also pays for help for trainees.

Besides supporting companies, the fund would pay for job-related language support, social and psychological care, and cross-company technical training. Modeled on the student services organization, the SPD wants to create psychosocial counseling for apprentices. The youth employment agency is to make sure young people and companies find each other and that every young person gets a place or an offer under the training guarantee. Dual training is also to become more attractive through fair pay and prospects of being kept on.

The SPD wants as many apprentices as possible to be kept on by their employer, with the public sector and public companies leading the way. Dual training, dual study programs and university study are also to count as equal, with easier switching between them.

Trainees should be able to stay at their company after training. The city and its companies should promise this where possible. They should also train more people than they need. Job training and university should have the same value. Switching between them should be easier.

Public employers would train beyond their own needs where it makes sense. Dual training and vocational school teaching would be geared more toward the social and ecological transformation, including through adapted Bremen curricula. Dual study programs would be regulated more clearly and tied more closely to academia. In hiring, the SPD wants equal opportunity between university degrees, master craftsperson certificates and other advanced qualifications.

The SPD wants to create large vocational training campuses where related occupations are taught together. This is meant to reduce the fragmentation of vocational schools, improve support for apprentices and allow shared use of rooms and machinery.

The SPD wants to build big places for job training. They are called campuses. People in similar jobs learn there together. They share rooms and machines. Each campus should have its own daycare.

Each campus would have a daycare center with flexible hours so that young single parents can also complete training. Multi-professional teams are planned, for example school social workers, school psychologists and contacts from the youth employment agency, youth welfare office and the chamber of employees. The SPD expects cross-occupational offerings in light of digitalization and the social and ecological transformation. Lifelong further training could also take place on the campuses.

The SPD wants to sharply reduce the many programs for young people without an apprenticeship and create one central program. It would focus on practical skills and prepare for dual training rather than mainly aiming at school certificates.

Some young people do not find a training place after school. There are many different programs for them. The SPD says this is too confusing. It wants one central program. It should mainly prepare them for job training.

With good results, the new program could be credited as the first year of an apprenticeship. Programs leading specifically to lower or intermediate school certificates would still exist. Transition classes and dual training would take place at the same school so that teachers and social workers remain as trusted contacts. Multi-professional teams would support the classes, and students would try out modules in different occupations in small groups and later go deeper in their preferred one.

The SPD wants to strengthen career guidance in middle grades, with more time for internships and dedicated youth employment agency contacts at schools. Students are to get to know the options besides the Abitur better.

Students should learn about jobs earlier. They should have more time for internships. Every school should have advisers for job training. There should be required days about vocational training. Parents should get advice in several languages.

The time for at least two internships would be extended. All Oberschulen and Gymnasien would hold mandatory days on vocational education and the upper secondary programs. Guidance should also convey that every training occupation is open to all genders. Together with the youth employment agency, the SPD calls for more counseling and multilingual parent consultations, especially for immigrant families. Programs for earning a school certificate while working are also planned.

The SPD wants to bring school-based training programs, especially in health and childcare, closer to the dual system, with a training contract and pay. Places in practice-integrated training for childcare workers (PiA) are to triple by 2024 and quadruple by the end of the term.

Some jobs are learned only at a school. Trainees there often get no pay. The SPD wants to change this. Trainees should get a contract and pay. For childcare workers there should be four times as many such places.

For occupations regulated by the state, the goal is practice-integrated training with a contract at a designated workplace and training pay. The SPD sees this as a contribution against the skills shortage and toward gender equity in the labor market. The BAföG-funded integrated standard training is to be replaced by the practice-integrated model in the long run but continues for now because of staffing needs. To prevent dropouts, support services would be expanded, starting with the “Bleib dran!” program for health and childcare occupations.

The SPD wants to update the planning for expanding Bremen as a science location and align it with the existing research and transfer priorities. Exchange between academia and the regional economy is to be strengthened to keep businesses competitive during the transformation. Artificial intelligence is seen as an important future field.

The SPD wants to keep expanding research in Bremen. Universities and companies should work together more closely. This should help the region's economy. The universities should also be better connected internationally.

Among the priorities the platform lists are marine and climate sciences, materials science, robotics, logistics, and aerospace. The guiding idea is transformative universities that work for the region and together with it. The university, colleges and research institutes are to get support to grow their international networks and succeed in EU initiatives. The SPD considers it right to have stuck to the Wissenschaftsplanung 2025 (science plan) despite tight finances.

The SPD wants Bremen to do better in the federal excellence competition. A second research cluster is meant to pave the way for the University of Bremen to regain the status of a University of Excellence.

The federal government honors very good universities. They are called Universities of Excellence. The SPD wants the University of Bremen to be one of them again. For this, another big research project should win in the competition.

The existing excellence cluster on the ocean floor at MARUM is to be confirmed. In addition, a further cluster initiative should succeed in the competition. The SPD relies on marine, polar, and climate research, on research into social change and statehood, on materials science, and on the Minds, Media, Machines focus area. To secure the location, the platform also commits to the goals of the Wissenschaftsplan (science plan), which is meant to give universities reliable funding for their planning.

The SPD wants to align degree programs more closely with the region's need for skilled workers. In the long run, everyone with a bachelor's degree from Bremen should get a suitable master's place in the state, and Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences should keep growing.

The SPD wants more places for master's degrees. A master's is the second degree after the bachelor's. People who finish a bachelor's in Bremen should be able to do a master's there too. The university in Bremerhaven should grow. This gives local companies more skilled workers.

To achieve this, master's programs are to be expanded significantly. Degree offerings should match the state's business clusters even more closely. For Bremerhaven, the platform points to the new programs in social work and physician assistant, which are meant to stop the decline in student numbers. The SPD sees the university as important for the city's structural change. It also wants to use digitalization in teaching, research, and administration and provide resources for it, without pitting in-person and online teaching against each other.

The SPD wants more students from Bremen to go abroad and more students from abroad to come to Bremen. Among other things, more degree programs are to be offered in English.

The SPD wants more exchange with other countries. Students from Bremen should be able to go abroad more easily. More students from other countries should come to Bremen. For this, there should be more degree programs in English.

The platform sees universities as places of international exchange. Besides English-language degree programs, international course content and classes in English are to be promoted. Given the competition for students and academic talent, the SPD also wants to strengthen the promotion of Bremen and Bremerhaven as places to study and their welcoming culture.

The SPD wants to create more dual study programs, which combine university study with company training, and set uniform quality standards for them. It also wants easier movement between vocational training and university so that more people without the Abitur (university entrance diploma) can study.

In a dual study program, you learn at a university and in a company. The SPD wants more of these programs. The same rules should apply to all of them. People without the usual school diploma should also find it easier to study. The workload for students should have clear limits.

Together with the training companies, the SPD wants to work toward framework plans and uniform model contracts. This is meant to make students' workload more transparent and to limit it. How work and course content are credited should also be clearly regulated. The platform justifies this with the growing need for further training caused by the social-ecological transition and technical progress. Universities are to be places of lifelong learning.

The SPD wants to push for a comprehensive overhaul of BAföG (federal student aid). Aid is to become independent of parents' income, apply without age limits, and gradually return to being paid entirely as a grant.

BAföG is money from the state for students. The SPD wants to change BAföG a lot. The money should no longer depend on what parents earn. There should be no age limit anymore. Step by step, students should no longer have to pay the money back.

The platform calls BAföG a social democratic promise of upward mobility. Studying should not depend on how much money a student's family has. The SPD sees the federal reform of June 2022 as a first step that is not enough. A full grant means that the aid no longer has to be partly repaid as a loan.

The SPD wants to further lower the administrative fee that students pay and eventually eliminate it. In addition, the scholarships for starting university are to be kept and expanded.

Students in Bremen pay a fee for administration. The SPD wants to lower this fee further. Later it should go away completely. There are also scholarships for starting university. A scholarship is money to support students. These scholarships should stay and grow.

The reduction is to happen when additional budget room is available. The platform points out that fees for long-term students have already been abolished and the administrative fee has already been lowered once. The start-of-study scholarships are to grow depending on the budget situation. At the federal level, the SPD wants to achieve more federal support for students.

The SPD wants to bring the University of Bremen downtown with a second location and to set up a city campus and a health campus there. The aim is to link research more closely with civil society, culture, the creative sector and start-ups, and to bring more life into the center.

The University of Bremen should get a second location. It should be in the city center. Then many young people will come downtown every day. The SPD hopes for new things to do and for student housing.

The platform names the Bremer Landesbank building on Domshof square as a site that should be pursued further. A city campus and a health campus are also planned. The SPD expects several thousand young people to come into the center each day. Student facilities are meant to bring new meeting points, cultural offerings and student apartments. According to the platform, further knowledge-based service companies could follow.

The SPD wants to support Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences in expanding near the city center and to secure funding for the "Schaufenster der Wissenschaft" (showcase of science). This is meant to let people experience the city's research in the middle of town. It also plans investment in events, culture and the digital shift of shops and service providers.

Bremerhaven has a university in the city center. The SPD wants it to grow there. There is also the "showcase of science." People can experience research there. The SPD wants to give lasting money for it.

The platform sees the university in the center as a strength and backs its expansion close to downtown. The "Schaufenster der Wissenschaft" is to bring the research community closer to the public. Investment is to make events, art, culture and family offerings possible. Retail, service providers and the events sector are to get support in moving into the digital world.

The SPD wants nursery care for children under three to become free of charge in the long run. Currently, daycare is free for children aged three to six.

Daycare is free for children aged three to six. The SPD wants the same for nurseries later on. Nurseries are for children under three. Parents would then no longer pay fees.

The platform treats daycare centers and nurseries as places of education, not just supervision. It points to the existing entitlement to six hours of care from age one and to free daycare for three- to six-year-olds. In the long term, it says, all educational institutions should be free of charge, including nurseries.

The SPD wants every child to attend daycare before starting school and aims to make this mandatory in the long run. It justifies this with a smoother transition to elementary school and with lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The SPD wants all children to go to daycare before school. Later, this should become a duty. The SPD says children learn important things in daycare. That makes starting school easier.

Every child should be able to attend at least the final year of daycare. For children not yet reached, the platform points to the Kita-Brückenjahr (a bridging year), aimed mainly at children who need language support. According to the platform, the pandemic showed that children without daycare may lack basic skills and social competencies. From this the SPD derives its long-term goal of compulsory daycare.

The SPD wants to keep expanding childcare until every child can be offered a place close to home. The focus is to be on socially and economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. Opening hours are to become longer and more flexible.

The SPD wants more places in nurseries and daycare centers. Every child should get a place nearby. Poorer neighborhoods should get more places first. Daycare centers should also open longer and at other times.

The platform cites about 5,000 new places in Bremen and 850 in Bremerhaven since 2015 but still considers supply too tight. To build faster, the city-owned companies GEWOBA and BREBAU as well as Immobilien Bremen are to be enlisted in the city of Bremen. Besides daycare centers, the SPD counts on home-based childminders and wants to continue and expand the program "Soziales Lernen im Quartier" (social learning in the neighborhood). Care is also to be available at unusual hours, which the platform says helps single parents, shift workers and people in training.

The SPD wants to deploy more trained staff per child in daycare centers over time. Groups in challenging settings are to become smaller so staff can better meet children's needs.

The SPD wants more trained staff in daycare groups. Each staff member would then care for fewer children. Groups in difficult neighborhoods should get smaller. This should happen step by step.

The platform points to the sharp rise in children with recognized special needs and to the demands of inclusive early education. More staff are to work in groups with these children. The better ratio is also to be achieved through new types of personnel and multi-professional teams. The SPD ties these improvements to recruiting enough staff.

The SPD wants to support children and teenagers in learning German throughout their entire school career. To that end, teachers and daycare staff are to receive further training, the language support plan is to be implemented, and daycare centers and elementary schools are to be linked more closely.

Many children need help learning German. The SPD wants to offer this help from daycare until the end of high school. All teachers and daycare staff should get extra training for this. Daycare centers and elementary schools should work together more closely.

All teachers and daycare staff are to be trained in German as a foreign and second language. Academic language is to become a subject of its own in the curricula, and learning progress is to be assessed regularly. The SPD wants to fully fund the language support plan already adopted; language specialists are to have enough time and space for individual support. The pilot networks of daycare centers and elementary schools are to be rolled out everywhere in order to introduce the education plan for ages 0 to 10 statewide.

The SPD stands by Oberschulen (comprehensive secondary schools) and Gymnasien as the two school types that both offer every diploma. In the long term, a single school for all remains its goal. Oberschulen without their own upper level are to guarantee a path to the Abitur through school networks.

Bremen has two kinds of secondary school. Both offer every diploma. That should stay. In the long run, the SPD wants one shared school for all children. Every school should offer a safe path to the final exam.

The Abitur (university entrance diploma) is to remain available after eight years at a Gymnasium and after eight or nine years at an Oberschule. In school networks, students get a binding promise of a place at the assigned upper level, and curricula and materials are coordinated. The Gröpelingen district is to get its own upper level. In grades 9 and 10, dedicated days on vocational training and upper-level options are to help students choose. Where possible, elementary and secondary schools are to be brought together on one campus.

The SPD wants to greatly expand compulsory all-day schooling in Bremen and Bremerhaven so that the legal entitlement to all-day care can be met from 2026/27. For this, and because of rising student numbers, schools are to be newly built and renovated.

The SPD wants many more all-day schools. Children learn there in the afternoon too. From the 2026/27 school year, children have a right to this. The SPD wants to build new schools and renovate old ones.

In the SPD's view, more learning time narrows the link between social background and educational success. The expansion is to focus on elementary schools and help parents combine work and family. The platform justifies construction and renovation with growing enrollment, all-day schooling and better conditions for inclusion, and also sees it as a contribution to climate neutrality. The money is to be made available step by step.

The SPD wants to tackle the teacher shortage by making working conditions more attractive. In addition, foreign qualifications are to be recognized more easily, and teachers from abroad are to be able to top up their qualifications while working.

Schools do not have enough teachers. The SPD wants to make working in schools more attractive. Teachers from other countries should find it easier to work here. They should be able to catch up on training while working.

The platform counts double staffing of classrooms with pedagogical professionals and well-staffed multi-professional grade-level teams among better working conditions. Teachers are to be assigned to schools in a targeted way, especially to those in challenging settings. Besides career changers, the SPD relies on recognizing foreign degrees. School teams are also to include health advisers and other professions in the future, for example for questions of nutrition and health.

The SPD wants to further develop inclusive schooling. All schools are gradually to get permanent school assistants and enough special education staff. Schools in challenging settings are to have two professionals per classroom and smaller classes.

In Bremen, children with and without disabilities learn together. The SPD wants more support for this in schools. All schools should get permanent assistants. In difficult neighborhoods, each class should have two professionals. Classes there should also be smaller.

The platform cites the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and sees Bremen as the national leader in implementing it. School-based assistants assigned to the school as a whole are to ensure that children with impairments can take part in lessons. Special education teachers are also to be available at Gymnasien and vocational schools, which so far have no regular support. Double staffing is meant to relieve teachers and improve individual support.

The SPD considers grades an inadequate reflection of learning and favors written progress reports. Teachers are to get more time and tools to assess individual students' learning. Supplementary funds for schools are to be kept at least at their current level.

The SPD says grades do not show well what a child has learned. It prefers reports on learning progress. Teachers discuss these reports with parents and students. Teachers should get more time to check how each child is doing.

The Institut für Qualitätsentwicklung im Land Bremen (IQHB, the state's quality development institute) is to provide objective diagnostics, learning assessments and performance comparisons as a basis for developing schools and teaching. Individual students' educational paths are to be tracked more closely. The SPD wants to keep paying the discretionary funds that schools use for purchases or partnerships at no less than the present amount and to add more where needed.

The SPD wants every young person to find a suitable next step into vocational training or university after school. Those who need a lot of support are to get a personal career mentor early on, up to their entry into working life. A transition system is to open a path to training readiness even for young people without sufficient qualifications.

After school, all young people should find a next step. That can be job training or university. Some need a lot of help with this. They should get a personal mentor. The mentor helps until they start working.

General and vocational education are to remain closely linked. Measures by general schools and the Jugendberufsagentur (youth employment agency) are to be better coordinated and networked. The transition system is aimed especially at young people who, after lower secondary school, find neither a training place nor access to full-time vocational school programs. It is to offer support on the way into working life regardless of the diploma achieved so far.

The SPD wants to restructure the funds schools receive for teaching materials so that digital textbooks and digital tools chosen by the schools themselves can be paid for. Additional computer science offerings are to be expanded and reach as many students as possible.

The SPD wants more digital school books. Schools should be able to pick the programs that fit them. For this, the money for learning materials will be shared out in a new way. There will also be more computer science offerings. Computer science is knowledge about computers and programs.

The platform points out that all students and teachers in Bremen already have iPads. The allocation for learning materials is now to be changed so that schools can choose their own digital tools in addition to statewide software licenses. The SPD expects this to bring instant feedback during practice, relief for teachers from routine tasks, and better accessibility in inclusive education. Offerings on information technology, programming and algorithms are to grow, and teachers are to receive training for them.

The SPD wants to launch a dedicated action plan so that significantly fewer young people leave school without a diploma. Its focus is mainly on boys from low-income households with little connection to educational institutions where German is not the main language.

Some young people leave school without a diploma. The SPD wants this to happen much less often. It wants to make an action plan for this. The plan should mainly help boys from poor families. These families often do not speak German at home.

The platform sees this group as especially at risk of falling through gaps in the education system. Support is to be gender-sensitive and diversity-sensitive. The SPD links this to its aim of enabling advancement and participation through education.

The SPD wants schools to teach more than before how to check information critically. It justifies this with disinformation and conspiracy narratives on social media, which in its view weaken trust in state institutions.

There is a lot of false news on the internet. The SPD wants children to learn at school how to check news. They should also understand how media work. The SPD says this protects democracy.

The platform describes filter bubbles and the lack of journalistic vetting online as a problem. Checking information is to be taught systematically and is seen by the SPD as a future key skill for democracy. Students should also learn how different media and their stars and role models work, and be able to assess this critically.

The SPD wants to expand education about Europe, both in schools and in teacher training. It justifies this with the war in Ukraine and the goal of keeping the idea of a united, peaceful Europe alive.

The SPD wants children to learn more about Europe. They should get to know values like peace, democracy and human rights. Future teachers should also learn more about Europe. The reason is the war in Ukraine.

As tools, the platform names the exchange program Erasmus+ and the certification of Europaschulen (Europe schools). Schools are to make young people from elementary school through upper secondary level aware of European values and foster an attitude that does not accept war as a way of resolving conflicts. The commitment of principals and teachers in this field is to be better rewarded.

The SPD wants to strengthen environmental education facilities and fund them permanently through the regular budget so that more children experience nature. Bremen's Schullandheime (school country hostels) are to be preserved; every child should be able to visit one at least once during their school years.

Children should learn more about plants and animals. The SPD wants to give steady funding to places for environmental education. The city should keep spaces for nature and nature-style playgrounds. Every child should be able to go to a school country hostel once.

The platform counts knowledge about agriculture, such as where milk comes from, as part of knowing nature. Urban spaces are to be secured for children's nature experiences and for nature-style playgrounds. The SPD wants to talk with the operators of the school country hostels about necessary investments in up-to-date facilities and sustainable operation.

The SPD wants schools and daycare centers never again to be closed the way they were during the COVID-19 pandemic. It points to worse opportunities and greater emotional strain for children from poor families.

During COVID, schools and daycare centers were closed at times. This hurt poor children the most. The SPD does not want such closures again.

According to the platform, Bremen kept daycare centers and schools open as far as possible during the pandemic and equipped students with iPads early on. Even so, it says, temporary closures and repeated quarantines clearly worsened equal opportunity for children living in poverty. The platform also notes that women took on most of the additional care work.

The SPD wants to keep evening out unequal starting conditions in daycare and school. Institutions with many children in difficult circumstances are to get the best resources, and existing support measures are to grow.

Not all children get the same start in daycare and school. The SPD wants to even this out. Schools and daycare centers with many disadvantaged children should be the best equipped. There should also be more language support.

As measures already in place, the platform lists two teachers per class at elementary schools, extra support funds for schools and expanded language support. These steps from the last legislative term are to be strengthened and extended. The SPD sees education that opens up opportunities as one way out of poverty.