SPD on education

By the early 2030s, the SPD wants to have put more than ten billion euros into school buildings and about two billion euros into sports facilities. Public buildings are increasingly to be built in series using modular construction to save cost and time.

The SPD wants to spend a lot on schools. It should be more than ten billion euros. About two billion more goes to sports fields and sports centers. Buildings should be made from a kit of standard parts. This should save money and time.

According to the platform, sports also benefit from school construction with well over 100 new gym courts. The city's service providers SBH and GMH are to mass-produce so-called Hamburger Häuser: a classroom building, a daycare building, a neighborhood building and a clubhouse for smaller sports clubs. The SPD presents this as its answer to higher construction and financing costs. The approach is also to be applied to university buildings.

The SPD wants to keep the existing school structure of Stadtteilschulen (comprehensive district schools) and Gymnasien (academic high schools). In its view, this stability is the basis for Hamburg's rise in education rankings.

Hamburg has two kinds of secondary schools. The SPD does not want to change that. It says schools could focus on good teaching this way. Hamburg now does better in comparisons.

The platform points to Hamburg's rankings in several education comparisons from 2023 and 2024. The SPD attributes this to schools having been able to work on teaching for more than ten years without structural debates. Going forward, the focus is to be on equal opportunity, school infrastructure and the transition to working life. Social problems at schools are to receive more attention.

The SPD wants to reform and widen discounts on school lunches, especially at secondary schools. No child should stand out or be excluded at lunch because of their family's finances.

School lunch should be affordable for everyone. More children should eat for free or pay less. This applies especially to older students. Nobody should see who pays less.

Hamburg already scales lunch prices by income and number of siblings; families without income of their own pay nothing. These rules are to be revised and extended. Meals are to remain high-quality and sustainable. The platform calls for a transparent system in which it is not visible whether a child pays full price, a reduced price or nothing.

The SPD wants to focus on reading, writing and arithmetic. The share of children who fall below minimum standards in German and math is to be halved in the longer term.

All children should learn to read, write and do math well. Today some children do not reach the minimum goal. The SPD wants to cut that number in half. Small classes should stay. As few lessons as possible should be canceled.

The platform relies on core subjects, individual learning support and the promotion of social and emotional skills. Daycare centers and schools are to cooperate more closely to ease the move into school. Learning gaps from the COVID period are to be closed and canceled lessons kept to a minimum. Small class sizes based on the social index stay in place, and schools in disadvantaged areas receive special support.

The SPD wants to replace the recommendation for a type of school with a recommendation for a school career path. It also wants to develop new grading formats, pilot a flexible upper secondary level and advance inclusive education.

Today children get a recommendation for one type of school. The SPD wants a recommendation for the school path instead. Schools should test new kinds of feedback and grades. Some schools should try out a flexible upper level.

The program "alles»könner", in which schools test new feedback and assessment formats, is to grow. A pilot with interested schools is to try out the "flexible upper level". Inclusive education and support for gifted students under the "Leistung macht Schule" initiative continue. Out-of-class tutoring support is to be funded so that families need not pay extra, and the education monitoring by the IfBQ institute is to be used further.

The SPD wants to train more teachers, open new routes into the profession and reduce dropout rates in teacher training. Teachers and principals are to have less administrative work.

Hamburg needs more teachers. The university should train more of them. There should be new ways into the job. School offices should get more staff. Then teachers have less paperwork.

Coaching and mentoring are meant to lower the number of students who drop out of teaching degrees. New plans include an in-service preparatory program and a pilot for a dual teaching degree in vocational education. The SPD advocates higher pay for trainee teachers and wants to secure professional development and health programs permanently. Leadership roles are to be possible part-time, school offices better staffed and school supervision strengthened through a quality initiative.

The SPD wants to continue the current school construction program with new buildings, extensions and renovations, because student numbers grow along with the city. Schools are to be better equipped as all-day places and designed sustainably.

Hamburg is growing. So the city needs more room in schools. The SPD wants to keep building and renovating schools. New school roofs get solar panels. All-day schools should get better furniture and equipment.

More third-party uses are to be allowed on school sites, such as housing for apprentices. Daycare centers are to continue being built on school grounds and in shared buildings. Solar panels are planned for new buildings and roof renovations, and school grounds are to be designed close to nature. More money is to go into equipment and furniture for all-day schools, prioritized by the KESS social index; schools wishing to become campus district schools will be supported.

The SPD wants to fully digitize more schools and give every student there a tablet. In addition to federal Digitalpakt funds, Hamburg is to put its own money into digital school infrastructure and teacher training.

More schools should work fully digitally. Every child there gets a tablet. Hamburg spends its own money on this. Teachers should also get training for it.

The platform names tablets and notebooks, alongside mandatory computer science classes, as part of modern education. The number of fully digitized schools is to rise. Beyond Digitalpakt funding, Hamburg wants to keep investing in digital infrastructure itself. Teacher training in this area will also continue to be funded.

The SPD wants to establish social work at every school and gradually expand multi-professional teams. It points to rising psychological strain among students and the importance of social skills for learning.

Every school should have social workers. They help children with problems. Many children feel under a lot of stress today. Children with disabilities should get more help too. There should be more programs against violence.

Teams from different professions are to grow, also with a view to children with disabilities or conditions such as ADHD and autism. Cooperation between youth services and schools and projects such as "3 für 1" are to be expanded. Violence prevention programs will be stepped up. The concept of in-class support assistants is to be revised following a scientific evaluation.

The SPD wants to give students more of a say and strengthen civic education. In its view, democracy can only be taught credibly if it is practiced within schools themselves.

Students should have more say at their school. The SPD wants more civic education. Schools should visit memorial sites more often. The shared religion class for all should stay.

The plan includes forms of participation, a feedback culture and co-determination rights for students. Civic education at the state agency and the adult education center, and the work of memorial sites such as Neuengamme, are to be strengthened. The "Israelitische Töchterschule" education site is to be expanded to prevent antisemitism, and special programs are planned around May 8. The platform sees Hamburg's "religious education for all" as a model for interfaith dialogue.

The SPD wants to develop vocational training together with its partners in the field. The focus is on childcare, health and nursing professions and on more programs at the Berufliche Hochschule (vocational university).

The SPD wants to improve job training. Jobs in childcare, health and nursing matter most. More young people should want to learn these jobs. The vocational university should offer more programs.

Career and study guidance remains a fixed part of schooling. Training in childcare, health and nursing professions is to become more attractive in order to win over young people. The programs of the Berufliche Hochschule Hamburg are to be developed and expanded.

The SPD wants to broaden the offerings of Hamburg's Volkshochschule (adult education center), continue digital learning formats and modernize its rooms. The youth music school is also to be strengthened.

The adult education center offers courses for adults. The SPD wants more courses. There should be new digital learning workshops. The classrooms will be modernized. The youth music school should offer more too.

The center's digital focus is to continue, and new digital learning workshops will be piloted. By 2026, seminar rooms will be redesigned for about two million euros, and additional, more accessible branches will be added. The platform highlights free basic education courses, language support and integration courses. The youth music school's offerings are also to grow.

The SPD wants to expand research fields such as computer science, deep tech and quantum computing and secure funding for non-university institutes. Hamburg is to become better known internationally as a science location.

Hamburg should be strong in research. The SPD wants more professors for computer science. A center for quantum technology is planned. That is a new kind of computer technology. Research institutes keep getting money from the city.

A computer science strategy with the universities is to be set up in 2025, leading to more professorships through partnerships. A Quantum Technology Hub with universities and private partners is planned at the DESY Innovation Factory; PETRA IV is to be developed as a radiation source. Public funding of institutes such as GIGA, HBI and IFSH is pledged, and the IFSH is to become a Leibniz institute. Monthly welcome events, a marketing strategy and a dedicated section at the Welcome Center are meant to attract researchers, as is the Science City Bahrenfeld.

The SPD plans a Hamburg excellence competition that gives selected top researchers a special grant to work with great independence. The aim is to attract international top talent and keep it in the city.

Hamburg should get its own competition for the best researchers. Winners get extra money. With it they can do research very freely. This should bring experts from around the world to Hamburg.

The funding program "Hamburg für die Welt" involves a demanding selection process. A second program, "Forschen für Hamburgs Zukunft", is meant to encourage universities to study key issues facing the city. Universities get incentives for graduate schools and postgraduate programs, and gender-specific career barriers are to be removed. At the federal level, the SPD advocates better visa conditions for researchers.

The SPD pledges that studying in Hamburg will remain free of tuition fees. Cafeteria prices and the student services fee are, if possible, not to rise between 2026 and 2030.

Studying in Hamburg has no tuition fees. The SPD wants to keep it that way. Cafeteria food should not get more expensive. Libraries should be easy to use. The big university library should get a new building.

Cafeteria prices and the student contribution to the Studierendenwerk (student services organization) are to stay at the level already decided. Libraries are to be fully usable and have up-to-date digital offerings; funding for this is pledged. The platform considers the planned new building for the State and University Library unavoidable.

The SPD wants to put billions into renovating and expanding university buildings over the next two decades, applying the model used for school construction. By the early 2040s, Hamburg is, in its view, to have the best university buildings in Germany.

Many university buildings are old. The SPD wants to renovate them and build new ones. That costs many billions of euros. It should work like school construction. In about 20 years the buildings should be the best in the country.

A survey of the roughly 230 existing buildings serves as the basis for the renovation and expansion path. The platform puts the need over the coming decades at six to eight billion euros. Following the school construction model is meant to make processes more efficient. The SPD cites the funding agreements with universities, including full compensation for wage increases in 2025/2026, as a reliable financial basis.

The SPD sets out development goals for Hamburg's individual universities and the university hospital. These include expanding the technical university, a long-term plan for the UKE hospital and building extensions at several sites.

The SPD has plans for each university in Hamburg. The technical university should grow. The university hospital gets new buildings. The University of Hamburg should open up more to its neighborhood. The art and music colleges get support too.

The University of Hamburg is supported in applying for new excellence clusters and in digitization, and is to develop its sites in the neighborhood for science-related uses. A Zukunftsplan 2050 is being drawn up for the UKE, with an extended main building, a new psychiatry clinic and a building for precision medicine. The HAW is to grow physically, and the TUHH is to become more international and better connected to downtown Harburg. HCU, HFBK, HfMT and the Hamburg Media School are to be secured and further supported.