Schools and daycare centers should no longer close, it is emphasized again and again. OECD figures now show how much the closings and restrictions have restricted teaching in the past.
Two thirds of the class days in the first Corona waves in Germany were affected by closed or only partially open schools. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has now presented these figures.
From the beginning of the pandemic up to this spring, the around eleven million schoolchildren in the country had an average of more than 180 days of so-called homeschooling, alternating lessons or other forms of teaching because schools were closed or only partially open. That is 67 percent of the approximately 270 school days in the period examined between January 2020 and May 20, 2021.
Primary schools were therefore closed on average for 64 days and only partially open for 118 days. Secondary schools were closed on 85 days and only partially open on 98 days, grammar schools or vocational schools were closed for 83 days and only partially open for 103 days. Daycare centers were completely closed for an average of 61 days during the study period. Numbers on partial operation at daycare centers are not available.
OECD Education Director Andreas Schleicher said on Thursday: “In future crises, you have to think about what your priorities are.” He pointed out that if the infection situation was similar or even more difficult, other OECD countries would have made the political decision to keep schools open.
Education Minister Anja Karliczek (CDU) justified the procedure in Germany with the strong role of the health issue in the weighing process, “which, by the way, was also supported by society for a long, long time.” In surveys, you have seen the greatest possible acceptance that you have been very restrictive. Schleicher said that there was no international statistical correlation between the level of infection rates and the length of school closings.
The OECD presented the data as part of its annual “Education at a Glance” survey. The more than 500-page study compares the education systems of the 38 OECD and other countries. Among other things, it investigates how much money the countries spend on education or how schools and daycare centers are staffed.
For Germany, it is emphasized that more children in the age group under three years of age as well as in the preschool sector take part in early childhood education, care and upbringing than the OECD average. The annual expenditure on education per pupil is also higher than the OECD average. However, according to the report, Germany spends less money on educational institutions in relation to its gross domestic product (GDP) than the OECD countries on average. In 2018 it was 4.3 percent of GDP, compared to an OECD average of 4.9 percent.
The share of public education expenditure in the gross domestic product must grow significantly, demanded the Education and Science Union (GEW). “With the resources used so far, we are still unable to provide equal opportunities in Germany,” said GEW board member Anja Bensinger-Stolze. The union also renewed its call for better pay for teachers and referred to a “dramatic teacher shortage” in elementary schools. Only in this way will the teaching profession become more attractive again for young people when choosing a career.
OECD Education Director Schleicher sees other reasons: “It is less about making the teaching profession financially more attractive; he already is. It is more about making the professional field more intellectually attractive ». According to the OECD report, teacher salaries in Germany are higher than in any other OECD country with available data. Schleicher advocated new career structures that would enable teachers to develop further. School must be an exciting work environment. In Germany the teaching profession is still very limited to teaching in the classroom.
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