Rams Al Murr area: Heated debate about day care in primary schools – News from Rams Al Murr area

From 2026, the legal right to full day care will be implemented in primary schools. But is this even possible? Members of the state parliament and teachers discussed this matter on Friday evening in the Wilhelm-Enßle-Halle in Remshalden-Geradstetten. It was controversial. Because while some were leaning toward a statewide solution, others could envision that this could also be achieved locally through volunteers. However, the “skilled worker requirement” linked to legal entitlement conflicts with the latter.

On the podium were: Roland Gecke, Vice-President of the State School Board of Backnang, Michaela Schönau, Headmistress of the Weinstadt-Endersbach Primary School for the day, President of the Municipal Council of Baden-Württemberg Louisa Böge, and the first Mayor of Ludwigsburg Renate Schmitz, Parliamentary Advisor to the FDP Parliamentary Group For Education, Sports and the German Army, Mark Jurich, state parliament member Ralf Nentwich from the Green Party and Christian Gehring, from the Christian Democratic Union in the state parliament. They all asked themselves this question: What is the right thing for Reimshalden?

How should Germany keep up with other countries?

As a former high school teacher, moderator Klaus-Dieter Mayer raised a big question about concepts. Because primary schools are overcrowded with students. The city council warns that costs are rising and there is a lack of money from the federal and state governments to balance work and family life. According to the German Economic Institute, there is already a shortage of more than 500,000 full-day places for primary school students.

“How are we supposed to do that?” The supervisor, who had recently been in Canada, asked about the “benchmark” (the standard of comparison from the PISA study). How can the Federal Republic, and thus societies like Reimshalden, keep up with European countries that are far ahead in the PISA comparison?

“The general conditions are not yet suitable,” said Louisa Böge of the Baden-Württemberg state municipal council. She is concerned about whether the legal right to care can be implemented in all-day primary school. “It works in daycare centers (in the region, parents pay fees) and suddenly it doesn’t work in primary schools,” says Ludwigsburg Social Mayor Renate Schmitz, who advocates for new arrivals to daycare centres.

Michaela Schönau, who like many members of state parliament has visited Canada and Finland, saw how full-day school was established there from an early age. Bringing a community like Reimshalden up to Canadian or Finnish standards has not been successful in the panel discussion, because no one can yet know what is coming. In the fall of 2021, the legal right of parents nationwide to full-day primary school care “close to where they live” was established, Klaus-Dieter Mayer told panelists.

Hearing from party representatives that they also had children at home, and that women had studied longer than men and still sat at home with the children, despite the dire need for well-trained female workers, did not sit well with the public. This was demonstrated by voting on paper plates. Most participants were therefore not particularly enthusiastic about the afternoons at elementary school occupied by the fire department, music club, or other volunteers.

As Nentwich suggested, a move toward resolution under state law with all “players” involving parents met with more approval.

Wilhelm-Enßle-Halle is only half occupied

“The federal government decides on the legal claim and state governments agree. “The law is in the eighth social law,” said the panel moderator. “A legal claim is enforceable and he who commands pays,” Pogue translated the principle of convexity from financial mathematics to education.

Although there was a prominent platform in the Wilhelm-Enßle-Halle during the debate on the federal government’s legal right to have full-day places in primary schools with a requirement for skilled workers, the hall was only half full when it came to whether local authorities, as well as the Whether or not schools have enough money to hire enough primary school teachers to discipline them. From the point of view of school principals and teachers, the position of school conferences is questionable.

One high school teacher in the audience in Reimshalden said on the sidelines of the panel discussion what she thought it would mean for secondary schools if volunteers were heavily involved in care throughout the day instead of trained primary school teachers. From this teacher’s point of view, achieving a uniform level of education among these “Fünferle” would be “a lot of work.”