DORTMUND. School education does not enjoy the highest priority in residential groups and homes and the corona pandemic has particularly exacerbated the problems of the children and adolescents affected, says the Dortmund social scientist Nicole Knuth. At a hearing in the Bundestag, she called for more digitization in the homes, more participation and more fairness in education.
Access to the Internet and digital media is considered to be a key factor for young people’s social and cultural participation. Not all child and youth welfare facilities are equipped for this, says social scientist Nicole Knuth, professor of social work at the Dortmund University of Applied Sciences. “The young people told us about strict rules that weren’t very individualized. And in the cell phone time, the WLAN will also break, ”said Knuth, during a wiretapping in front of the Bundestag Children’s Commission. With the pandemic-related contact restrictions in particular, measures such as collecting cell phones in the residential groups of the educational aid would have made communication between the young people and friends and family more difficult, the scientist emphasized. “This must not happen again in the current lockdown.”
Nicole Knuth had recently carried out intensive research on home education for six months and accompanied the exchange with parents, specialists, young people and former residents at the “Future Forum Home Education” of the International Society for Educational Aids.
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“In addition to the necessary digitization, improved contact options with family and friends are among the main requests,” reports the professor for social work. In every day care center there is now a parents’ council, but in nursing homes that is still a specialty. The participation rights of children as well as parents would have to be strengthened by the legislature. Changes planned in the meantime in the Child and Youth Welfare Act (SGB VIII) are correct, but not yet far-reaching enough, “especially with a view to the involvement of parents,” she told the Children’s Commission.
In addition, Knuth calls for the right to education of young people to be better anchored in homes. “School education is usually not the top priority in home education,” she sums up. This would have become more apparent in the Corona crisis during the first lockdown, when everything was switched to homeschooling at the beginning of the year. Many residential groups were overwhelmed and were not increased financially or in terms of personnel to meet the requirements of the current lockdown. “The young people themselves also repeatedly express their desire for more tutoring or money for educational materials,” reports Nicole Knuth from the workshop discussions at the Future Forum.
In addition to laws and financial resources, according to Nicole Knuth, new approaches are also needed in the training of educators and social workers. Digitization requires modern media education and in order to better involve parents in the children’s everyday lives in the home, new concepts are necessary. Home education must also become more regional again. “In the past few years we have seen an increasing specialization of the residential groups on behavioral patterns of young people,” said Knuth. This leads to sometimes very long journeys and therefore less contact with the family. This development must be reversed in order to make modern home education sustainable.
Scientists: Home children are often severely disadvantaged digitally
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