Learning at a regular school, for all children and regardless of their personal situation: This is the claim of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which came into force in Germany 15 years ago today, on March 26, 2009. This is regulated in Article 24 of the Convention, which stipulates the right to inclusive education. If you would like to read for yourself: You can find the convention in everyday language here.

But after 15 years there is still a big gap between expectations and reality. “Inclusion requires perseverance, and for some in Germany it seems to be running out halfway there,” says Jürgen Dusel, the Federal Government Commissioner for the Affairs of People with Disabilities. Britta Schlegel from the German Institute for Human Rights says: "Even 15 years after it came into force, the implementation of the rights of people with disabilities does not have the necessary political priority in many places or is subject to resource reservations." Schlegel demands that this urgently needs to change, because: "Human rights are non-negotiable.« (“Debate of the week”)

Otherwise, you are – hopefully – in a somewhat relaxed Easter holiday mood. There are no classes this week in 15 federal states. Only in Schleswig-Holstein do the Easter holidays begin on the Tuesday after Easter, but last until April 19th. Solidarity greetings this week to all the teachers in the far north who are holding down the fort in the classrooms.

At least no certificates have to be created at the moment. There has been a bit of excitement in Thuringia about the last ones issued: a total of 51,232 grades are missing from the state's half-yearly reports - thanks to the cancellation of classes and the lack of teachers.

There are, at least, a few new ideas from the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs regarding the shortage of teachers – more on that below. ("That's going on")

As always, we look forward to receiving praise, criticism and topic suggestions for the “Little Break” this week – please send an email to bildung@spiegel.de. We wish you a happy Easter!

Yours, Armin Himmelrath


For the SPIEGEL education team

That's going on

1. Steps against the teacher shortage

How many teachers will be missing nationwide by 2035? It really depends on who you ask: 68,000, 115,000 or even 180,000 are mentioned by various experts - the lowest estimate, by the way, comes from the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK). But they also recognized that the problem was urgent - and therefore suggested breaking down the rigid rules of teacher training.

The resolution is called the “enabling paper” and it sets out the calculation: everything should stay the same, but new things should be added. This means: two subjects, a master's or state examination and a 12-24 month traineeship will continue to be the standard route to teaching in the future. There will also be additional ones in the future

  • Teachers with only one subject

  • Dual teacher training courses in which the traineeship is integrated into the master's degree

  • Lateral entry through a teaching master's degree.

My colleague Silke Fokken took a closer look at the KMK's plans; you can find her text here.

2.

Violence in schools

When you read the headline, you thought of knives in students' hands, of beatings in the schoolyard, of cyberbullying - right? But one could also think of the teacher from Cottbus who probably attacked two students with an immigrant background and has now been suspended. This caused quite a bit of unrest in Cottbus.

My colleague Kristin Haug had an insightful conversation with the psychologist Herbert Scheithauer about the seemingly increasing violence in school contexts. He is a professor of developmental psychology and clinical psychology at the Free University of Berlin and says that public perception and reality are not congruent.

“There are fewer incidents of violence than there were 15 or 20 years ago,” emphasizes Scheithauer in the interview, which is worth reading, “but we are more aware of these acts because the media also reports more about them and they are discussed in public. And of course they rightly cause fear, especially among those who then send their children to lessons or work at school. At the same time, teachers are more sensitive to these incidents and are reporting cases that they would not have reported before." You can find the entire interview here.

The topic of violence certainly includes the case of a 16-year-old high school student from Ribnitz in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, who allegedly got the police on her back because she is said to have spread a rather harmless AfD Smurf video on TikTok. If you take a closer look at the case, however, the whole thing looks more like an orchestrated campaign from the right against the school principal - he is currently experiencing online violence on a fairly large scale.

One last tip on the topic, this time to listen to: The radio feature “The Inner Chain Mail of the Teachers” also deals with experiences of violence at school.

3.

The digital school – and what about AI?

Maybe you also breathed a sigh of relief when it became clear the week before last that the Digital Pact 2.0 had been saved from failure for the time being. The federal and state governments have gotten quite stuck in the negotiations, the tone between the levels is icy.

After all, there are supposed to be new talks in April, but we hear from the negotiating group that the continuation of the digital pact is far from a done deal.

It is perhaps no wonder that students themselves are causing digital disruption in school: many have long been using AI programs to learn and solve tasks. According to a study by the Vodafone Foundation, 73 percent of the students surveyed see AI more or even clearly as an opportunity, while only 27 percent see it as a danger.

However, artificial intelligence is hardly an issue in schools: only 17 percent of children and young people said that the use of AI was allowed at their school and that there were rules about it. Otherwise, according to the survey, it depends on individual teachers how to deal with it (38 percent). Another significant proportion (38 percent) of those surveyed said that the use of AI was not yet an issue at their school.

4. And what else?

KMK again: In response to poor school performance (Pisa, Igloo, IQB education trend, etc.), the education ministers have agreed on fixed hourly quotas for certain subjects for primary schools. The aim is to create a nationwide uniform school foundation: German, math and subject matter lessons should together make up more than half of the lessons in all primary schools in the republic.

Debate of the week

How well is Germany doing in terms of inclusive school education 15 years after the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities came into force? Not particularly good, says colleague Jeannette Otto in “Zeit”. Affected parent associations and initiatives in several federal states also see it that way. Below you will find selected statements.

“

NRW

is violating the UN convention and its own school law,” says Eva-Maria Thoms from the “mittendrin eV” association. After 15 years of legal validity of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, North Rhine-Westphalia is not expanding inclusive education, but rather the special school system. The country is moving “backward instead of forward” in school policy.

more on the subject

  • Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: This is how Germany disregards the rights of school children with disabilitiesBy Miriam Olbrisch

  • Rights of people with disabilities: Inclusion in Germany? Set, six! By Franziska Schindler

  • Support in schools: Why there are supposedly more and more children with intellectual disabilities By Miriam Olbrisch and Susmita Arp

Compared to other federal states,

Hamburg

is considered successful when it comes to implementing the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, says Silke Brockerhoff, who advocates for inclusion: “Nevertheless, even 15 years after the convention was signed, the city is still far from having an inclusive education system for everyone .« Because most of the children and young people who receive inclusive schooling in Hamburg attend primary schools and district schools. Inclusion still hardly takes place in high schools. And: “More than half of all Hamburg students with mental disabilities, physical disabilities, sensory impairments and complex disabilities still attend a special school.”

“ To this day,

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania

spends millions on exclusionary special schools and thus structurally prevents the basic right to participate in common education for all children,” says Kathrin Muhs for the northeast of the republic. For them, this is intolerable: "Sticking to the institution of special schools violates the fundamental right to non-discriminatory participation and thus the dignity of the individual child."

Do you have comments, experiences or thoughts about school inclusion? Bring it on – we look forward to receiving letters to bildung@spiegel.de.

MIRROR Ed

At this point we should not miss a reference to our educational initiative SPIEGEL Ed. She develops free teaching materials on the subject of political media education from grade 3 onwards. Feel free to take a look - and if it's suitable, you're welcome to bring a workshop on the subject of media literacy into your class. This costs you nothing and is a win-win for all parties.

With that we say goodbye until the next “short break”. The “Little Pause” team thanks you for your interest and suggestions!