Special gender symbols remain banned in Saxony's schools

Saxony is retaining the ban on using special characters in schools. A new regulation will come into force on August 1, which will continue to prohibit the use of gender asterisks, colons, underscores or the so-called Binnen-I in school language, as announced by the Ministry of Culture. Education Minister Conrad Clemens is thus continuing the path taken by his predecessor Christian Piwarz (both CDU) "towards linguistic clarity in Saxony's schools".

In the Free State, schools are thus following the recommendations of the German Spelling Council. Violations of official spelling are marked as errors in written work and result in deductions. In order to achieve a linguistic balance, more use should be made of paired forms such as "Schülerinnen und Schüler", gender-neutral formulations or passive forms, according to the Ministry of Education.

The ban on special characters also brought criticism from the former Minister of Education Piwarz. He had defended it with the argument that gender signs were not suitable for everyday use and made it more difficult to learn German at school. Those who use gender signs create additional linguistic hurdles.