Thursday, October 28, 2021

Bernd Gögel, October 7, 2021, All-day School

Baden-Württemberg Landtag, October 7, 2021, Plenarprotokoll 17/14, pp. 591-592.

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.

Yesterday we here heard something of the distinctive worldviews. I have now heard one and want here in the hall to speak for another.

Herr Minister-president, you speak of the best possible education for children, of qualified, skilled workers. We are simply amazed how previous generations without all-day schools produced skilled workers, how the industrial revolution and the economic miracle of the postwar time were possible without your selfless effort in the Bundesrat.

Ladies and gentlemen, your statement on the debt brake is also of interest to me. According to the Herr Minister-president, that shall be guaranteed. To continue to await that is however actually a lofty notion.Your Green State chairman Detzer noted succinctly:

There is not a debt brake in the world which will prevent us from making Baden-Württemberg climate neutral.

When for you, Herr Minister-president, education is as exactly so important as the climate, then you need to presently declare the debt brake obsolete.

The question is: Is education really important to you? Just now was it made known that in the education monitor’s ranking of Federal States Baden-Württemberg has dropped a further place, in fact from fifth to sixth place. That is a trend which continues since the beginning of the Green participation in government. Which might have purely nothing to do with the absent all-day schools. Moreover, Saxony as before is at the head of the educational monitor in Germany. Wherein do we of the AfD recall that? In the results of the recently conducted Bundestag election.

            Sascha Binder (SPD): Ach!

In Saxony have clearly more people voted for the bürgerlichen parties than in other areas of the Bund – perhaps with exceptions in Thüringen.

            Andreas Stoch (SPD): The bürgerlichen or the rightist radicals?

These people want to maintain the achievement principle in education and in society – in contrast to you, ladies and gentlemen.

At another place in your government declaration, the background of all-day supervision is actually dealt with factually, with – this is nicely re-written – “the better compatibility of family and occupation”. The AfD has no objection to that, even if we of the AfD would first prefer to establish that with tax relief and means of family support. For us, that would be the first step.

Ladies and gentlemen, if parents decide to themselves supervise their children in the afternoons and want to have time for that, that should be possible and be promoted – and with care-helpers and parcel carriers, Herr Minister-president, which you introduce here as examples. On that point, I am somewhat amazed, since somewhat later in your speech you spoke of “families remote from education” [bildungs-fernen Familien]. Thence for me certainly arises the question: Who is meant by “remote from education”? I hope that you have not thereby meant the care-helpers and parcel carriers, since that would naturally be a fully inappropriate characterization.

It should be possible for you in any case to grant that this compatibility of family and occupation is the background of this legislation – and plainly not the quality of education. For I here want to for once quite clearly ask one thing: Instruction for Grundschul children between seven and ten years from early morning until late afternoon? That was certainly not meant by you, ladies and gentlemen.

Thus acknowledge the true background instead of ever again placing educational opportunities in the foreground. So as to say it clearly: We, the AfD Landtag delegation, basically agree to a legal claim to all-day places for Grundschul students. This requirement will not only be seen in the population but also in the many groups referred to in the corresponding offerings. One of which was already mentioned today: The single parents in the population in Baden-Württemberg. There are presently a total of 380,000 Grundschul students and 2,440 Grundschulen, and 765 of these Grundschulen presently offer all-day supervision. Interesting is the number of those who use this offer: Of the 152,000 who had the opportunity, 80,000 presently partake of it, the portion of which is something over 50%. From that can thus be derived that for approximately 200,000 all-day Grundschul students would be expected additional investment and operations costs.

The appropriations presentation, Herr Minster-president – with much self-praise – was surely a bit remote from reality. Since if your argumentation was listened to – prior to the negotiations in the appropriations committee, the Bund wanted to participate with a maximum of 50%, and may now be at 70% – , it needs be said: That is not quite right. Since here is always “up to”, and there is a cap at 3.5 billion € for the Federal portion of the investment costs. You would have already been able to previously undersign that – which is of course a zero-sum game.

It previously was already at 3.5 billion € in regards the calculated investment costs. The improvement – which needs be deemed by you as a success – is in regards the operations costs, for which the Bund in the preliminaries wanted to undertake nothing, and wherein now in the end nevertheless significant improvements have been attained.

This round with the “plus/minus null” reckoning in regards the investments can also naturally still backfire. This round can also still go into minus because we do not know how many families will claim this offer for their children, how high the investments in fact will be and whether then also it is not again attempted to shove onto these rails urgent construction restorations and other investments in the schools area. We can only demand of you to put an end to such efforts in good time so that these things will quite clearly be separated one from another.

Your statement on Baden-Württemberg’s influence in the Bund was likewise very interesting. Since this influence is clearly very important to you personally. We thence actually proceed, ladies and gentlemen, to that that should be self-evident. Baden-Württemberg is as before the third largest Federal State. The State always had an influence in the Bund, yet in the last years, especially in the last two legislative periods, unfortunately no longer in the form of also having had leading political figures in the top positions; their number becomes fewer and fewer. It is, taken with a bit of irony, certainly nice that a Green Minister-president needs hold high the flag of Baden-Württemberg in Berlin, and the once great bürgerlichen party in Baden-Württemberg can there generally no more assert an influence.

The hollowing-out of federalism runs rampant [Die Aushöhlung des Föderalismus greift um sich]. The Bund keeps the States on a short leash so as to be able to somewhat better control them. It is thoroughly positive that the Herr Minister-president is engaged in opposition to that.

On the proposal to set up a federalism commission: We can quickly set up commissions; we therein have great experience. Circles of chairs we form relatively free of interruption. But it makes no sense when here the corresponding guidelines have not been given and all are also willing to attain that – that means a new redistribution of means in Germany, more means for the States and more means for the localities for the maintenance of their duties. For that, the distribution of sales taxes clearly needs to be changed. We ourselves speak for that and here also we support you.

I want to expand on your statement as to what is in the State Constitution concerning upbringing [Erziehung]: In our Basic Law also are important, elementary articles concerning upbringing. I cite Article 6, paragraph 1:

            Marriage and family shall enjoy the special protection of the state.

Further is stated in paragraph 2 – and this is quite decisive:

The care and upbringing of children is the natural right of parents and a duty primarily incumbent upon them.

Here we have distinctive worldviews. I therefore bring up this article from the Basic Law. Your attempt to for once introduce all-day supervision on a voluntary basis is worthy of all respect; the offer needs be there. But we know you and expect that sooner or later you will introduce this as being obligatory. It is in the genes of the Greens and the reds to want to politically accompany and form the people from the cradle to the grave. And to that, we are decisively opposed, ladies and gentlemen.

            Anton Baron (AfD): Precisely that is the point! And the CDU just looks on!

            Sascha Binder (SPD): Jesses Gott!

 

[trans: tem]