With a view to the Bundestag elections, education unions are calling for significantly more commitment in the coming years to combat the shortage of teachers and fundamentally better funding of the education system.
"If politics does not act now, we will not have a chance to compensate for that for years or decades," said the chairman of the Association for Education and Upbringing (VBE), Udo Beckmann, of the German Press Agency.
"Qualified staff does not grow on trees, but has to be won over with targeted professional campaigns and maintained through appropriate working conditions."
In terms of investment in education for society as a whole, Germany clearly lags behind industrialized countries such as the USA and Norway, criticized the President of the German Teachers' Association, Heinz-Peter Meidinger.
He spoke out in favor of putting one percent of the annual VAT income into education.
The teachers' association could gain great sympathy for a corresponding proposal by the FDP.
In addition to the topics mentioned, the VBE, the Education and Science Union (GEW) and the Teachers' Association will include the modernization of schools, digitization and coping with the consequences of the Corona crisis among the most important school and educational policy topics in the coming years.