2024-08-06 18:35:42
The schools are to be brought up to date with the latest technology. But how much money will this require? And who will pay for what? The federal and state governments have been arguing about this for months.
In the tug-of-war between the federal government and the states over the further financing of the digital expansion of schools in the state, Federal Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger is setting conditions for the states. She expects the states to be willing to finance half of the planned Digital Pact 2.0 and to state how much the states will contribute to the financing, according to a letter from the FDP politician to the President of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany (KMK) and the Saarland Minister of Education Christine Streichert-Clivot (SPD).
Information about the overall financial framework that the states have set in their respective budgets for the coming years is urgently needed for the federal government’s planning. “I therefore request a corresponding list as soon as possible.”
The Federal Minister of Education is turning the tables. For months, the states have been exerting pressure and demanding concrete information from the federal government on how much money it intends to provide for school digitization in the future. In a letter to Stark-Watzinger a week ago, Streichert-Clivot made this clear again and threatened to convene a special KMK meeting at short notice if the states’ questions on this matter were not answered satisfactorily.
The states fear that after the first digital pact, which expired in May – but whose funds can still be accessed – there will be no more follow-up funding for schools and that digitization could thus come to a standstill.
Stark-Watzinger points out that education is actually a matter for the states, but that “a continued joint effort by the federal and state governments to digitalise education is urgently needed”. The federal government is committed to this in the traffic light coalition agreement and also in the government’s draft federal budget for 2025. “I would like to emphasise once again: The Digital Pact 2.0 must come.”
The federal government contributed 6.5 billion euros to the first digital pact in 2019. The money was used to finance laptops and digital boards for schools, for example. The federal government covered 90 percent of the costs, and the remaining ten percent was borne by the states and municipalities.
In the future, however, the federal government wants a maximum of 50/50 financing. The background to this is also a decision by the federal cabinet in summer 2023, in which the traffic light coalition agreed to only cover a maximum of 50 percent of new federal-state programs.
In addition, the federal government also insists that the states invest the money not only in technology, but also in teacher training so that as many people as possible can use the newly acquired technology.