Saxony's Minister of Culture Conrad Clemens (CDU) has admitted serious failings in the state's previous education policy. "But we have to be honest - 25 years later - and admit it openly: We miscalculated back then and we made mistakes. We closed the schools too rigidly," he said in the state parliament.
He was looking back on a time when many schools in Saxony closed due to drastically falling pupil numbers, no more staff were hired and teachers were forced to go part-time.
Clemens' critical look back concerns his own party: since 1990, the Ministry of Education has always been in the hands of the CDU. "We have to learn from our mistakes," he said. The CDU-SPD coalition is well prepared. There is a school law that gives schools a great deal of flexibility. The Minister emphasized the government's intention that no schools would be closed in the upcoming decline in pupil numbers. However, it could be that other decisions are made locally.
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