Götz Frömming, December 13, 2023, Education Disaster

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/143, pp. 18150-18151. 

Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. 

If is entered into a well-known search engine the word “education catastrophe” [Bildungskatastrophe] – it directly occurs to me when I peek at you, Herr Gehring – 

            Kai Gehring (Greens): Many thanks!

then is received within 0.21 second approximately 34,600 results. The theme thus appears to agitate the public – in that regard, the term is certainly nothing new. Already in 1964, the leftist pedagogue Georg Picht coined the term of the so-called education catastrophe. He of course did it with a knowing alarmism so as to drive the Politik before him and agitate for reforms, similar to what today the authors of the PISA study are attempting. Yet, ladies and gentlemen, Georg Picht was wrong; since in comparison to today the 60s were simply an education paradise. Then, even a Hauptschul student still mastered the rule of three. Today, very many Gymnasium students can no longer do that, ladies and gentlemen. 

When we now peek at the study, we need to state – it has already in part been said: In mathematics, Singapore is 100 points ahead of Germany, which corresponds to a lead of several learning years. And in German and natural science, our performances have dramatically broken down. The big question simply is: How to explain this? 

For one – this was also discussed this morning in committee – it was a great failure to close the schools for months during the Corona pandemic. In scarcely one other country was it so long as with us in Germany. We had warned of that and meanwhile we know that these school closings, inclusive of wearing masks, were completely useless. Pleasant greetings to Herr Lauterbach and his wretched advisors. 

Yet you evidently also wanted to use the times of the school closings to demonstrate that presence instruction might be replaced by digitalization. Now, ladies and gentlemen, if this should have been a field research, then you have thereby ruinously failed. 

Kai Gehring (Greens): Yet you said: There is no Corona! And Herr Gauland as one of the  first let himself be vaccinated! Thus, what now?

Since in many subjects, the students after the celebrated on-line instruction during the pandemic knew even less than before. That is indeed an evidence of incapacity for your pitiful attempt with the digitalization. While other countries – the song of songs to digitalization was again sung here today – like Sweden or Denmark besides straightaway again ban the tablets from the instruction – just read the newspapers – 

            Kai Gehring (Greens): Nay, read the studies for once! One does not succeed here                  with newspaper knowledge! 

one hears and is stunned – to recollect the culture of books, you plan on economic and not really pedagogical grounds a Digital Package 2.0. Dear colleague Kaczmarek, dear Herr Jarzombek, you also evidently are for it. Please exempt the children and our schools from that. They still have not yet digested the Digital Package 1.0. 

And the second principal origin of the education disaster is due to political false decisions – we have also already heard it. Between the years 2012 and 2022 – thus, within the span of the PISA – the portion of students with a migration background nearly doubled with us. It is now at 26 percent. And, ladies and gentlemen – here I need to look at the CDU – that was also unfortunately a “service”, in quotation marks, of your Chancellor. 

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): Of whom they want to hear nothing more! 

Kai Gehring (Greens): Do you still want to say something on gender, and why the young are worse?

The opening of the borders in 2015 and in the following years was a heavy mortgage on our education system, on which we still have to chew, ladies and gentlemen. 

Josef Kraus, he was for 30 years President of the German Teachers Association, has just recently indicated in an article that at a proportion of from 20 to some 30 percent of children with a migration background, the level of a class or of an entire school dramatically sinks. In regards to which I need say from my own experience: It depends on from which countries the students come. Girls from eastern Europe, boys from Japan or Korea, are as a rule not a problem. Yet, ladies and gentlemen, we need for once to openly state it: Problematic are countries of origin like Afghanistan, Palestine, Syria and also Turkey. These students frequently fail over-proportionately in our education system. And those are the facts, Herr Gehring, at which you certainly need not laugh. 

If we are not ready to name these facts without prejudice, without similarly swinging the racism club in the direction of the AfD, and then to thereby speak of it, then we will then also not protect our education system from further decline, ladies and gentlemen. 

Kai Gehring (Greens): Ja, you are in love with decline! We are average and need to be at the top! Yet, for you, it’s about decline! The AfD is a wrecking ball for Germany!          

Added to this with greater difficulty is that most of the students from these countries of origin also bring with them an unfavorable socio-economic profile, as is stipulated in the PISA study. Now, I translate that: There are students who also in their countries belong to lower classes distant from education. And it is simply naïve to believe that they, within a brief time with us,  could present the skilled force which we so urgently need. 

            Maria Klein-Schmeink (Greens): Which all of you scare off!

You make the dumbest migration policy of the entire world! 

            Vice-president Petra Pau: Please come to a conclusion.

To other countries come the top forces; from us, they emigrate. 

Kai Gehring (Greens): You are thus for the point system. Which you yourself do not believe in!

Thus will be nothing with the education change. We require an education change 

            Vice-president Petra Pau: Herr Dr. Frömming.

and a migration change of 180 degrees, ladies and gentlemen. 

Many thanks, Frau President. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

Götz Frömming, October 18, 2023, Gender Ideology

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/131, pp. 16301-16302. 

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. 

In the year 1817, thus around 200 years ago, the last teaching chair for astrology at a German university was closed. Who now thinks that the Enlightenment has finally triumphed, he is in error. 

            Maria Klein-Schmeink (Greens): You are evidence of that!

For a number of years, another pseudo-science has been on the march at our colleges. We speak today of the so-called gender research whereby in this connection the word “research” is a gross euphemism. Astrology could be better designated as a science than this gender ideology. 

The entire gender ideology, ladies and gentlemen, is based on the thesis, initially formulated by Judith Butler, that sex and indeed also biology may be freely chosen or – more precisely – constructed. When today you see on the internet pictures of young people who have undergone with the scalpel a sex change, these shocking, unhappy faces of mutilated children treated with puberty blockers, then you see modern human sacrifices brought there to the altar of the gender ideology. 

The acceptance of these trespasses upon the bodily inviolability increases with the medical-technical potentialities and – yes – with the money which can thereby be earned. Numerous clinics in the U.S.A., yet also in Germany, are already fixated on this business model. Gender ideology is thereby one of the present masks of Marxism. It could also be formulated: It is the theology of the woke left. It has nothing to do with medicine or science, ladies and gentlemen. 

The gender ideology besides also places in question the rights of women and homosexuals. A shrewd woman like Alice Schwarzer recognized this. She is therefore removed with hatred and spite from the left corner. 

Gender ideologues cannot answer the simple question of why the two sexes, which were allegedly invented by society and imposed upon people, exist in the animal realm. They also cannot answer how many socially constructed sexes there generally are and where they can be found. 

In Hamburg officially live just 31 people who designate themselves as diverse. An AfD delegation inquiry to the Senate has yielded this. 

            Martin Sichert (AfD); Hear, hear!

Nationwide, just about 400 people up to February 2021 have had themselves registered as diverse. That thus corresponds to .00047 percent of the population. 

            Maria Klein-Schmeink (Greens): Why then do you feel threatened?

We have thereby needed to be accustomed to how under a leftist discourse hegemony one wronged minority after another was discovered and then needed to be pampered by the taxpayers. Yet how could it actually come to that such a small and exotic fringe group is able to push forward into the center of all Western societies? 

With his fringe group, it is not as usual. Their lawyers are responsible for that, who themselves as usual have issued the mandate. For these lawyers, who exert this theme with an enormous moral extortion pressure on the Western public, conduct themselves like a woke left. They want to remove from biology the sex theme so as to use it as a weapon in a political struggle. 

            Renate Künst (Linke): Speak German!

The so-called gender research also has not any scientific yield; political proceeds are put forward throughout. Here primarily needs to be named the dictatorship of gender speech and the early sexualization of children. Both follow the ancient Marxist goal: The attack on the traditional family, the elementary foundation of bürgerlichen society. It’s about re-education. 

Scientists, ladies and gentlemen, concern themselves with what is. Gender ideologues are only interested in what should be. Thus for the gender ideologues it is all the same that gender speech is hideous and semantic nonsense. A Studierende, ladies and gentlemen, needs to bring her child into the world in an auditorium, otherwise she would be a student giving birth. Thus for the gender ideologues it is also all the same that in all surveys a great part of the population rejects gender speech. 

Yet for all that – a little glimmer of hope – some of the Federal States and administrations are on the way to no longer taking part in this nonsense. Ladies and gentlemen of the CDU, we also have hope in the CDU delegation in Thüringen which prepares a similar motion. We will of course vote in favor. Pleasant greetings to Herr Merz. The wall must go, ladies and gentlemen. 

The mental health of our children is also all the same to the gender ideologues. In the meantime, in school books also are biological facts contorted. 

Ladies and gentlemen, we must put an end to it. Post-secondary schools [Hochschulen] need again to recall ideology-free research and teaching. Elementary education [Schulbildung] needs again to return to a value-neutral, age-appropriate investigation of knowledge on a foundation of fact-based recogntion of human propagation [wertneutralen und altersentsprechenden Wissensvermittlung auf Grundlage faktenbasierter Erkenntnisse zur menschlichen Fortpflanzung]. Gender is a dangerous, manipulative, unscientific nonsense. 

            Vice-president Aydan Özoğuz: Please come to a conclusion.

 Jawohl, Frau President. – Follow our motion [Drucksache 20/8862]. Let us deprive gender ideology of the the financial swamp. 

Many thanks, ladies and gentlemen. 

 

[trans: tem]

Michael Kaufmann, March 1, 2023, Research Strategy

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/87, p. 10392.

Right honorable Frau President. Esteemed colleagues.

Honored Frau Minister, I repeatedly remonstrated to you that the research policy lacks a clear strategy and alignment. My expectations for the future strategy put forward were correspondingly high.

And now? What a disappointment! Here, generalities alternate with flowery phrases and vague intentions. It is a series of ever the same statements on the importance of research, on the transfer from research to application and on international cooperation. I ask myself: Do you want to disguise with this wordy work how little you have to say substantially on the future of research and science, or is this just one of many voluminous marketing brochures? From a strategy deserving of the name, I in any case expect very much more substance and less verbiage.

You call this strategy – I cite: “The basis upon which we want to continue to build in the course of the legislature”. May I remind you that 17 of 48 months of this legislature are already past? Yet you, ja, write you will “accelerate the tempo”. Oh ja, here one can become quite dizzy after putting forward in just 17 months 86 pages of printed paper.

Nevertheless, let us look at a small selection from your deliberations. You want to more strongly delineate variety in regards to sex, migration background, etc. Should that now mean that more should be promoted not according to performance but according to quota? You certainly act as if we had scientific talent like sand by the sea which has not previously had a chance on account of an alleged discrimination.

In another place you speak of a “continual further development of the education system”. “Further development” is here indeed a euphemism when one considers the requirements for those starting studies in math and science subjects ever again need to be reduced because those studying for the Abitur no longer bring with them the necessary tools.

You want to “further raise our attractivity as a country of immigration” and “construct and make more attractive immigration opportunities”. That is, ja, one of the few points at which this government has long since succeeded. Only plainly not for well-qualified skilled labor and academics.

You finally also identify “limiting or constraining factors” like a lack of transfer culture, a skilled labor shortage and others. Only the most constraining factor you disregard: A dark mood of despondency which lay like mildew on our country in 16 years of Merkel government [eine düstere Stimmung der Mutlosigkeit, die sich in 16 Jahren Merkel Regierung wie Mehltau auf unser Land gelegt hat] and which by the present government has again been reinforced.

In the end, all that you have contrived is under a general finance reservation. The solution of our problems thus lies according to your own words in education, research and innovation; yet this solution is under a finance reservation. Do you fail to recognize, does the Federal government so much fail to recognize the priorities, or is that your colleague Lindner, who still has not recognized what hour has struck?

I fear this work shall verbosely cover up that, basically, your hands are tied. Your hands are tied because our resources, instead of securing the future, are preferably expended for weapons in the Ukraine and uncontrolled migration into the social system.

            Maja Wallstein (SPD): That must come! Naturally!           

Gabriele Katzmarek (SPD): And here we have it again! Is nothing                                            too stupid for you, or?

In the present situation, we require an authentic mood of change [echte Aufbruchstimmung], the concentration on essentials and the unchaining of all powers. To that, this so-called strategy unfortunately makes no usable contribution.

 

[trans: tem]

 

Götz Frömming, January 18, 2023, Education and Immigration

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/78, pp. 9339-9340.

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable colleagues. Right honorable Frau Minister.

We today discuss the National Education Report put forward by the authors’ group in May 2022. It is therefore no longer quite dewy fresh, yet that actually is not so bad, ladies and gentlemen; since what we read in this National Education Report, we all actually knew quite well before. And, yes, it is not the only report we have in the area of education. It would be well to be named: Today, the School Barometer is to appear. We have the IQB Education Trend, we have the PISA Countries Comparison, etc. etc. Only, ladies and gentlemen, it needs be said: …the sow, alas, becomes no fatter, and we for long already, Frau Minister, have no knowledge deficit but, dear colleagues, we have a management deficit.

In that regard, I want to mention a couple of points to you. Not far from here, in Pankow, recently schoolchildren with their parents demonstrated for the renovation of their school. What then is that about? I thought that was only in a third-world country, yet it occurs in the middle of Germany. The renovation backlog for school buildings is figured at some 40 billion euros. One billion – we have just now heard – shall now be grandiosely made ready. Yet recently there was 100 billion for weapons. That is a disproportion, ladies and gentlemen.

In addition, we have a massive deficit in personnel. And here it is lamented that 40,000 teachers are lacking. That has not only to do with the Corona preventive measures, but also with the massive influx from the Ukraine. 200,000 students plus x more: The colleagues in the schools cannot simply teach these with the left hand. Here, something must urgently happen, ladies and gentlemen.  

I cannot omit mentioning the following case which goes back just a few weeks. In Ibrenbüren, Nordrein-Westfalen, a 17 year-old young man stabbed his teacher. The silence in this case is deafening, ladies and gentlemen. I unfortunately need also say to you: That is not a single instance. As we know, violence against teachers in the schools massively increases. A third of principals in a survey have reported that they know of violence by students against teachers – it is besides frequently female teachers. In Nordrein-Westfalen, where this young man, by chance with a migration background, stabbed his teacher, it is even almost half of all schools. Also here must something urgently happen, ladies and gentlemen.

What you do, in this and in other cases, can actually only be named continual assistance [unterlassene Hilfeleistung]. In that regard, there are opportunities to improve the situation in the schools.

Let us come to speak of what in fact happens in education in the schools. We know in which States it is working. Those are by happenstance the States in the south of our country. Bavaria and Saxony are dong quite well. In all comparisons, Bavaria and Saxony are at the fore. Yet now for once it needs be recognized: What makes Bavaria and Saxony different? There is there a differentiated school system. There, the Hauptschulen have not been thrown into the waste basket

            Daniela Ludwig (CDU/CSU): Nay!

and outside just the shield is unscrewed in the belief that thereby everything will be better.  

            Daniela Ludwig (CDU/CSU): Exactly!

It is differentiated. There is a Grundschul recommendation and there is at least a minimal standard of authority and discipline. That is, I think, also a key for learning success.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, respect for the teacher belongs to that,

            Daniela Ludwig (CDU/CSU): Right!

exactly of course as respect for the student belongs to that. Yet of these things, apparently in your view out-dated, you want nothing more to know.

Beyond that, we need to return to education and knowledge instead of gender and inclusion at any price. In concluding – and this well accords with the debate: We also need to provide our immigration policy with education criteria.

            Vice-president Yvonne Magwas: Please come to a conclusion.

A further immigration from uneducated classes can our education system no longer bear [Eine weitere Zuwanderung aus bildungsfernen Schichten kann unser Bildungssystem nicht mehr vertragen]. And thereby is no one served.

Many thanks for your attention.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

Götz Frömming, November 24, 2022, Budget: Education and Research

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/70, pp. 8273-8274.

Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Dear colleagues.

When the speeches, Frau Minister, of you and the colleagues of the Ampel coalition are listened to, then it almost needs be thought that all is for the best in the education and research nation of Germany. Ladies and gentlemen, that is by no means the case. Nothing is good in the education and research nation of Germany. The opposite is the case.

Frau Minister, even if you act here as if your Ministry was one of importance and your colleagues also thus emphasize it: You need only take a peek at the time up there to see how high the status of your Ministry actually is in this Federal government.

            Kerstin Radomski (CDU/CSU): Yes, that’s true!

We debate education and research following agriculture and shortly before closing time, ladies and gentlemen. On such a day here, it actually needed to be in the first place – you need not act thus. You are the masters of the daily order.

            Kai Gehring (Greens): We just wonder how early you make closing time!

And which says something of where the several departments are to be ordered.

It is also not right that there has been an increase. On balance, it is the more so – and the Federal Audit Authority has calculated this for you – that the budget even shrinks if the inflation rate is considered.

Yet that alone is only half the truth; since in fact there is an area where we see an enormous increase, not only with you but also with your predecessor in the last legislative period, and indeed in the area of co-workers. The number of co-workers in the BMBF alone rose 24 percent in the last legislative period.

            Kai Gehring (Greens): That is false! They have also let women go!

That was besides twice as many as in the other ministries. It comes to still more in the additional years. Meanwhile, we have 1,414 co-workers in the Ministry for Education and Research.

            Kai Gehring (Greens): Acknowledge that co-workers were also let go!

Ladies and gentlemen, one may well ask: What do these co-workers do all day long?

            Kai Gehring (Greens): More than you!

Germany actually needs to be at the top in regards education and research – we unfortunately are not; the opposite is the case. Meanwhile, we lose not only at football but also in other areas. For example: In regards patents, the other nations march past us.

This morning we heard how bad the reality seems: Your 1,400 co-workers are alone not in a position to set up an on-line platform on which the students can order a one-time, heating cost subsidy of 200 euros. Here, you now call for help at one of the new Federal states. I find that to be embarrassing, ladies and gentlemen.           

Recently a couple of reasonable projects from the FDP were paid for; yet there are also others in this budget. We finance – actually you finance it, since we don’t want it – GiB, “A Look at Gender Aspects”. We finance “Schools without Homophobia”.

            Nina Stahr (Greens): Good!

            Wiebke Esdar (SPD): Correct!

We finance IfiF, “Innovative Frauen in Focus”.

            Nina Stahr (Greens): Also good!

We finance – or you –  in the millions a program for female professors. A Girls’ Day is financed, “Education for Sustainable Development”, etc., etc. Ladies and gentlemen, this budget thus excels only in ideology. Instead of performance and talent, you put in the first place gender and origin. Nothing can thus keep up with a world’s best education, ladies and gentlemen.

This budget needs to be completely cleaned out. We had hoped that you might bring a fresh wind into the Ministry. Unfortunately, like your predecessor, only a light puff blows. In truth, the Greens stamp this Ministry with their mark and that is the principal problem.

On the other side, money is lacking where it actually needs to be committed. For artificial intelligence, for example, a petty 50 million euros. In the area of nuclear energy research you have foreseen nothing at all. The Greens do not allow you even that. I know that you yourselves would see or do it otherwise; yet also here, Germany walks a Sonderweg. That is not good for our future. Education and research need again to be in the first place. With the Greens at your side, you cannot do it, Frau Minister.

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]