From Hildburg Bruns
At the last minute there was another surprise in the new 60 million building in Rudow: water damage with moldy walls. But all 1,121 students at the Clay School have already been able to move in and celebrate the school’s open day on Saturday.
A big plus on the growth account: 14,609 places have been built in Berlin’s public schools in the past three years. Of these, 5,341 were completed in 2023 alone by the end of the summer holidays.
However, the need is far from being met and is still growing: the largest number of students is expected in primary schools in two years, and in secondary schools at the end of the decade, as a parliamentary question from the AfD shows.
►Primary schools: The demand for 2022/23 is 185,760 places and for 2025/26 it is 190,728 – in less than twenty years it will fall back to the current level.
►ISS/community schools: Requirement in 2022/23 at 68,319 places, peak in 2030/31 at 74,348.
►High schools (grades 7–10): 2022/23 requirement for 51,960 places, increase to 55,622 necessary by 2030/31.
910 welcome classes have now been set up. 11,299 refugee children are currently being taught there. Due to the increased demand, the frequency has already increased from 12 to 15 children per class. If newcomers speak German well enough, they can move to regular classes. Welcome classes are often in spaces that are not regular classrooms. “They were reorganized through the establishment of branches, through temporary school buildings or through temporary deviations from orientation values,” said the school administration.
Education expert Thorsten Weiß (40, AfD) criticizes this: “The current system of welcome classes overwhelms our school system and therefore does neither justice to German children nor to those of migrants. A reduction in the number of refugees is therefore urgently needed.”
Instead, he calls for lessons based on local curricula directly in the refugee accommodations. The Senate is necessarily planning this at the former Tempelhof airport, for example – the surrounding schools are no longer able to accommodate them.