Brandenburg’s students have large educational gaps after Corona. A catch-up program should close them Photo: picture alliance/dpa/dpa-Zentralbild
By Michael Sauerbier
With a catch-up program, Brandenburg wants to close the educational gaps of the children after the corona lockdowns. Impossible, the schools are now realizing. The minister makes improvements.
Potsdam’s head of education Britta Ernst (61, SPD) has planned 68 million euros for the “Catching up after Corona” program. Her interim assessment: “Children and young people have suffered considerably from the consequences. Exactly as we feared.”
The students have missed a lot of learning material, show psychosocial abnormalities and weight gain, reports Ernst. That’s why she hired 500 students as helpers, hired 54 social workers, and used the sports association for swimming courses.
But instead of 200 tutors, Ernst was only able to get around 100. And only 2,077 children learned to swim with the program — out of 6,000 who missed out on lessons.
“You can’t catch up on what the children missed,” says Katrin Kantak, whose company “Kobranet” advises the schools.
Ernst tries anyway: The swimming courses are continued, private tuition is better paid. Schools can now get their money more easily. And you can decide for yourself what you use it for.
