display
Berlin (dpa) - From the digital pact school, which has now grown to around 7 billion euros, according to information from the federal and state governments, 1.363 billion euros had flowed out or approved by the end of last year.
The figures were announced by the Federal Ministry of Education and the Conference of Ministers of Education of the Länder on Friday.
Education politicians think that things are moving forward.
The money is still flowing too slowly, but unions criticize it.
The federal states reported that by December 31, just under 488 million euros had been spent from the funding program and 875 million euros had been approved but not yet called.
Funds only flow when an investment measure has been completed and the bill is available, it said from ministry circles on Friday.
display
The digital pact, originally with 5 billion euros from the federal government and 500 million euros from the federal states, was launched in 2019 to set up the digital infrastructure at schools, for example for the installation of the school's own WLAN or for the purchase of digital boards - so-called smartboards
The funding program was recently increased three times and now comprises around 7 billion euros.
In addition, there was 500 million to finance IT administrators for the schools, 500 million to purchase office laptops for teachers and a further 500 million to purchase loan equipment for needy students to enable them to take part in so-called distance learning during the Corona crisis.
The money for the rental laptops for students was quickly used.
According to the information, 376 million of the 500 million euros have now been accessed.
The other funding from the digital pact, on the other hand, is flowing out relatively slowly.
At the end of the year, a total of just under 112 million euros had been paid out and around 743 million approved for the area of infrastructure, i.e. WLAN and smartboards and for IT administrators.
There are no figures yet for the additional program for teachers' laptops.
It's only been in effect since January.
display
Country representatives said on Friday that the numbers did not show the full picture of digital investments in schools.
For example, situations were described in which school authorities and municipalities had already initiated measures and purchases at the schools and also made advance payments and only submitted applications for funding later or settled the costs.
Education Minister Anja Karliczek (CDU) said that it can be seen that the school authorities and schools are now increasingly starting concrete projects, even if the outflow of funds does not yet show this.
"In the past few months there has been a clear movement in the digitization of schools."
The President of the Conference of Education Ministers and Brandenburg Education Minister Britta Ernst (SPD) also sees progress: Many countries have invested in their learning management systems, expanded their platform offers and established secure communication channels for video conferences and end devices for schoolchildren.
"The acquisition of official equipment for teachers is on the way," she said.
Criticism came from the FDP: "The meager outflow of funds in the digital pact is still a disaster," said the deputy parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag, Katja Suding, the editorial network Germany (RND).
The numbers are no reason to cheer, said Ilka Hoffmann from the board of the Education and Science Union (GEW).
"Overall, the implementation of the digital pact - especially against the background of distance learning in the corona pandemic - was far too slow."
The Association of Education and Upbringing (VBE) sees progress, but has called for the application processes for the digital pact to be significantly simplified.
display
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210219-99-512277 / 2
Communication from KMK