Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) – With the first week of lessons after the Christmas holidays, North Rhine-Westphalia has had a “bumpy start to school” from the point of view of the teachers’ association for education and upbringing (VBE). Inadequate equipment, missing devices or poor WiFi connections caused some frustration, said VBE state chief Stefan Behlau on Friday.
The interim conclusion by School Minister Yvonne Gebauer (FDP) was naturally more positive. “On the whole, the start to distance learning was a good one,” she replied to the German Press Agency in Düsseldorf.
Because of the corona pandemic, classroom teaching was suspended for all students after the Christmas holidays. However, there is emergency care for grades 1 to 6 at all schools – without regular lessons.
Almost empty schools are not to be equated with a lack of lessons, underlined Behlau. The teachers do their best. What is now needed is a perspective for the coming weeks and months.
Gebauer emphasized that it is now paying off that the state government set up digital equipment programs for teachers and students last summer. “The number of requests that is now over 80 percent confirm that the offers meet the demand.”
In addition, the schools in North Rhine-Westphalia have a stable system for digital communication with the Logineo learning platform. It enables teachers to post texts, videos and other teaching materials online. The students work on the assignments and upload their results. “The system worked well in the first week,” said Gebauer. “Together with the pedagogical and didactic support offers for distance learning, the schools are now much better positioned than they were last spring.”
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