After around six and a half weeks of summer vacation, the new school year starts this Monday in Berlin and Brandenburg. Once again, it will not be normal: Because the corona pandemic is not over yet, schools also have to save energy, and more and more students from Ukrainian refugee families are going to school.
In the new school year, more students than ever before are learning in Berlin schools. According to the education administration, their number rose by a good 6,800 to 383,290 at general schools compared to the previous school year.
Not everyone starts on Monday: Berlin’s first graders will not start school until next Saturday, August 27th, and their classes will start on August 29th. 37,050 children are registered in schools, 1,370 more than a year ago. According to the education administration, this is the highest number since 2005.
As in previous years, the nationwide shortage of skilled workers is once again affecting Berlin’s schools. According to the education administration, there was a need for 2,645 permanent full-time positions, but not all of them have been filled so far.
A few days ago, Education Senator Astrid-Sabine Busse (SPD) put the gap in vacancies at 875 – with a total of more than 34,000 teachers. Many of the newly hired teachers are career changers without a teaching degree.
In Brandenburg, classes will start again this Monday for around 303,000 schoolchildren. In the first week after the summer holidays, non-immunized students, teachers and other employees at Brandenburg schools are required to be tested three times. There should then be no more corona restrictions and lessons in all classes should take place without masks in presence.
[In our newsletters we report weekly from the twelve districts of Berlin. Free and compact: leute.tagesspiegel.de]
Compulsory schooling will also apply from the new school year onwards for children and young people from Ukraine who fled from the Russian war of aggression. The Brandenburg Ministry of Education can only determine how many students this affects after school has started. Before the summer holidays, around 4,500 students from Ukraine were registered at Brandenburg schools.
