2024-02-20 18:13:45
The president of the donor association describes the “misery in education” as the “number one underestimated danger”. The association now wants to take action against it.
The Stifterverband and the companies associated with it want to work massively in cooperation with the federal states to achieve a better education system in Germany. One of the identified goals is to halve the teacher shortage by 2030, said the president of the donor association, Michael Kaschke, to the “Handelsblatt”. He described the “misery in education” as the “number one underestimated threat to the economy, prosperity and the cohesion of society”.
The Stifterverband is a community of around 3,500 people, companies and organizations from business, science and civil society. A coalition of foundations, teachers’ associations and educational researchers – the Future Education Mission – is intended to “create successful examples together with pioneers among the federal states and create supportive framework conditions in order to make the system fit for the future,” Kaschke told the “Handelsblatt”.
The proportion of university graduates in MINT subjects should increase
Kaschke emphasized that politicians must act particularly quickly when it comes to the shortage of teachers. “If we wait for the number of teacher training students to increase according to the current rules, it will take ten years and we will have lost a generation,” he warned. The number of collaborations between schools and foundations or companies should triple to 4,000 and the proportion of university graduates in the so-called MINT subjects of mathematics, computer science, natural sciences and technology should increase from 35 to 40 percent.
In addition, top managers need to be “personally committed,” demanded Kaschke, former head of Zeiss. Only then would a “real turnaround” be possible. According to the Stifterverband, there are a total of around 5,700 foundations in Germany that are committed to education and spend at least 2.5 billion euros on this every year.