Götz Frömming
Education and Research Budget
German Bundestag, September 12, 2019,
Plenarprotokoll 19/112, pp. 13804-13805
[Götz Frömming is an
Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from Berlin. He is a teacher and
here responds to the government’s 2020 budget proposal for education and
research.]
Right honorable Herr President. Right honorable ladies and
gentlemen.
Frau Minister, as I was listening to you – it
goes down like oil – I could only ask myself: Where actually is this country
which you have been describing? It sounds like a Utopia, yet it unfortunately
has not much to do with reality. Over half of your budget, Frau Minister, is
tied up in the so-called federal-state agreements. The federal audit authority
criticizes that in its presently submitted report. Why exactly? Because we
thereby enter ever more deeply into core areas which pertain to that federal
order of the states specifically defended in our basic law [Grundgesetz]. With the Digital Pact and
the entry of the federal government into the basic financing of colleges and
universities, you edge towards a violation of the constitution.
Independent of this constitutional problem,
the federal-state agreements are in other regards quite dubious: for one, with
the help of a golden bridle you force upon the states and localities education
policy goals which would not be pursued without the
millions of the federal government or an altered prioritization. I cite as
example the construction of all-day schools as well as the digitization of
teaching and learning. For another, with these partly special funded, long-term
means, the formation potential of the duties appropriate to the federal government
is reduced. To say it yet again in clear words: Frau Minister, it is not the
duty of the federal government to bring tablets or i-phones to the schools or
purchase software. It is the duty of the federal government to take care that
in Germany there are again firms which are able to develop and manufacture
these things.
The federal audit authority legitimately criticizes
that. For the first time in history, the federal government with the presented
budget enters into the long-term financing – I have mentioned it already – of colleges
and universities and other state institutions. Thereby will be effected the
once clearly separated federal responsibility between federal government, state
and locality. The citizen can no longer comprehend who exactly pertains to what
and for what is thereby also responsible.
(Noise
from SPD, Grünen.)
I can only imagine that you do not want to
hear that. An important principle of democracy, that the citizen knows whom he
must vote against when something goes awry, is no longer to be.
Kai
Gearing (Grünen): It is always correct to vote against the AfD.
Ladies and gentlemen, with the foreseeable failure of the Digital
Pact, the federal government and the states will be passing the buck back and
forth. But perhaps that also is already in one sense, ja, practicing from the start the effacement of responsibilities. Ladies
and gentlemen, permit me to say quite clearly: There is no digital education,
and there is not a computer in the world which can relieve our children of the
efforts of learning.
On the whole – according to the federal audit authority in its
conclusion – I cite:
A determinative, overall concept may be
missing from the agreements contracted
by the federal government and the states
Ladies and gentlemen, I wish in this situation for once to express
praise for the federal audit authority. There are independent, courageous
public servants in the best sense of the word there, who are dedicated to the
facts and thereby to our state and not to some party or other.
Sven Schulz
(SPD-Spandau): That surprises you?
Stephan Brandner
(AfD): Only the AfD applauds that!
That that can be dangerous in these times, as we have seen in the
Maasen affair.
Ladies and gentlemen, in the next ten years, from 2020 to 2030,
109 billion euros will flow to extra-university research institutions like the
Max Planck Society and Fraunhofer Society. That is a potent sum. Besides the Pact
for Research and Innovation, the federal government will also commit itself to
the promotion of colleges and universities. Here, in the same time frame, 40
billion euros are foreseen, thus totaling 150 billion euros for research
institutions and post-secondary education, 150 billion euros which initially
must be procured from the taxpayers, from the citizens and productive
businesses, ladies and gentlemen. The taxpayer therefore has a right to know
what exactly happens with the this money and also whether is is well invested.
In this regard, Frau Minister, I have heard little that is concrete and the
federal audit authority is right to indicate on multiple occasions that
improvements must be made here. The goal agreements and control function of
federal government besides leave much to be desired.
Ladies and gentlemen, during the summer pause the committee for
education and research had to hold a special session; the colleagues perhaps
may later continue. It is about an effort to clear up the remarkable
circumstance of a location decision worth millions. It is about the planned
construction of a center for battery research which will cooperate closely with
industry. Although Ulm had been initially favored by a group of outside consultants,
the subsequent choice was Münster as well as Irbenbürren, incidentally the
constituency of the minister and the assistant chairman of the committee. The
losing locations, ladies and gentlemen, receive residual compensatory payments;
so to say, a kind of hush money.
Frau Minister, I must say to you, your conduct in this matter was
not only not transparent, it was also incompetent, to put it politely. It is
not permissible to thusly handle the taxpayers’ money, ladies and gentlemen.
However, ladies and gentlemen, there is also the positive to
announce these days. The education comparison of the states was presented yesterday
and from which proceeds that the people of eastern Germany, that is, where the
AfD vote grows strongly, are more highly qualified and better educated that the
citizens in the west.
Stephan Brandner
(AfD): No – logical!
That besides is corroborated by the findings of the national
education report of 2018. Accordingly, in eastern Germany only 7 percent of
employment age adults are without a vocational certification. In states like
Bremen or Nordrhein-Westfalen, it is over 20 percent. And what distinguishes east and west Germany? Correct: Western
Germany has behind it years of migration of overwhelmingly non-educated [bildungsfernen] classes. Therefore, we demand, ladies and gentlemen, that the
education level and the ability to be educated must become a core criterion for
who may come to and remain in our country.
Karamba Diaby
(SPD): What you are saying is a scandal! Such nonsense I have no longer heard!
In the view of the AfD, it is an untenable
state of affairs to abandon the industrious, the well-to-do and the intelligent
while we on the contrary receive among us the educationally precarious of the
world.
Ladies and gentlemen, in conclusion, in
the view of the Alternative for Germany, we cannot give up our proven system of
national and federal education. We cannot hand it over to foreign directed
lobbyists who speak of educational justice but in truth desire to make of education
a commodity. The AfD is the only delegation in this house to recognize which
dangers proceed from a commercialization [Ökonomisierung] and globalization of the educational system. We in any case will
defend our national education system, though it cost us our last efforts.
I am grateful.
[Translated
by Todd Martin]
