The education system in Germany has been put to the test by the coronavirus pandemic.

The situation in day care centers and schools has caused considerable resentment and annoyance in recent months.

In the meantime, the situation has become emotionally charged.

Protests from students, parents, teachers and professional associations are increasing.

Above all, the Ministers of Education responsible for crisis management in the education system are subject to severe, sometimes very personal criticism.

Merely assigning blame doesn't help, however.

Against this background, there is currently a discussion as to whether the education system in Germany – like, for example, the energy supply and the health system – should be regarded as a “critical infrastructure”.

This question is justified, but not so easy to answer,

Well over 200 studies are now taking up the importance of the education system in the context of the pandemic.

If you include all members of the school community and their relatives, around half of the population in Germany is directly or indirectly affected by functional restrictions in day care centers, schools and other educational institutions.

Both adolescents and teachers are particularly vulnerable groups.

The susceptibility of children and adolescents to psychological or health consequences of the crisis, which is caused by developmental psychology, is urgently pointed out: at least one third of the pupils suffered visibly from the school closures and must be regarded as severely or even very severely affected.

Functional restrictions in the education system - school closures, class cancellations and also distance learning - have been proven to endanger equal opportunities and educational justice.

The cooperation of schools with extracurricular partners (companies, clubs, youth welfare institutions and many others) is impaired if regular school life cannot take place.

The "early warning and guardian function" of schools, i.e. the rapid recognition and reaction to problematic development processes and possible threats to the well-being of children, is also linked to physical presence.

And not a few children receive the only warm and regular meal of the day in their school.

costs in the trillions

In addition, missed lessons cannot be made up for without further ado.

Certain learning and development tasks ideally take place in specific time windows.

Once these are closed, the subsequent compensation effort is often high.

Education economists point to the economic relevance of a functioning education system: the absence of lessons alone during the first lockdown in 2020 could have led to an average reduction in the lifetime income of today's students of between 13,500 and 30,000 euros.

The limited functionality of the education system in the pandemic has probably caused costs in the trillions.