Poor results in school entry examinations have put Saxony's Minister of Education Conrad Clemens (CDU) on the spot. "We urgently need a mandatory survey of the language and developmental level of four-year-olds. Because only early preventative action can ensure good early childhood education before children start school," he explained in Dresden. To achieve this, it is necessary to take a holistic view of the child development process from one to ten years of age.
Many children lag behind age-appropriate development
Research by the "Leipziger Volkszeitung" and the "Sächsische Zeitung" recently produced alarming results. According to this, more and more children are lagging behind age-appropriate development. The studies revealed that five to six-year-olds are increasingly having problems with speech, vision, motor skills and counting. At the same time, the proportion of children for whom deferral or attendance at a special school is recommended has increased.
For the examinations for the 2024/2025 school year, a total of around 6,000 of the 36,800 children tested were recommended for deferral (8.3%) or a special school (8.0%). These are new highs. In 13,600 children, public health officers identified abnormalities such as stuttering or lisping as well as difficulties in forming sentences or pronouncing words correctly - that is 37 percent. These deficits have steadily increased in recent years (2019: 34.8 percent), they said.
