Teachers warn of bureaucratic chaos at Bavaria’s language tests for daycare children

A political rapid shot, bureaucratic and for primary schools associated with a very high amount of work: The BLLV teacher association is massive criticism of the implementation of the mandatory language stand tests for children that are currently carried out for the first time in Bavaria, which are to come to primary school in one and a half years. This should be able to react early to possible linguistic deficits before schooling.

« Nobody denies the central importance of language skills for education, » said BLLV boss Simone Fleischmann on Monday in Munich. The teachers in the elementary schools on site did not refuse to do the new task either: « We pull it through, we do not boycott anything. But we reflect what is going wrong in practice. »

Direct exchange of schools with daycare centers due to data protection

The implementation of the tests prescribed by the Ministry of Culture is « a real bureaucracy monster »: First, the primary schools would have to write to the parents of all children in their school sprinkles. The parents, whose children are certified by the daycare center, would have to submit this confirmation in the primary school. « However, a direct exchange with the daycare centers is not possible for data protection reasons, » explains Sabine Bösl from the BLLV. Although the primary schools therefore do not even know which daycare the respective child goes to, the school should report exactly this to the school office.

In addition, since neither email addresses nor telephone numbers of the parents can be passed on, « we often do not even know where the parents are when they do not respond to our post, » complains Bösl. In some schools, up to 30 percent of the children invited to the language test did not appear at all on the agreed date.

BLLV: Bureaucratic funding notice unsettled and overwhelmed many parents

If a linguistic support requirement is found in a child, the parents receive a four -sided funding notice « in an official German, which is difficult to understand even with good knowledge of German » by registered certificate. Many affected parents are therefore unsettled and overwhelmed – which again leads to questions and advisory needs. « We should not invest our time in bureaucracy, but in the children, » says Bösl.

While the test itself has to be done well and in around 15 minutes, the entire effort for the performing teachers and school psychologists is enormous: Because there is no exchange with the daycare centers, many children would be tested for whom no test is necessary. And because staff at primary schools are short, there is therefore even no regular lessons or even language support for current elementary school students.

It is also completely open to what is to follow in the absence of staff from the recognized need for support: many German pre-courses could already be found today in the preschool year due to a lack of staff. At the same time, the Ministry of Culture apparently assumes that in the future, up to a third of the children of one year in the year before schooling will need targeted German funding. Throughout Bavaria, this would be a good 40,000 children.

Specialists for the children with special needs « often not available at all »

The affected children often need not only exercises in German, but due to their living conditions, further pedagogical aid, warns Fleischmann: « These children actually need the best strength for a fair chance. » However, these are often not available at all. So far, it has also been unclear whether children have to change day care centers in the preschool year if the previous daycare center is not involved in German pre-courses.

In order for the language tests to work better in the future, the BLLV calls for an « exchange at eye level » with the daycare centers and a restriction of the entire preliminary of the tests to the children who do not attend daycare or for whom a language deficit was found in the daycare centers: « So why not use their expertise? » Asks BLLV-Expertin Bösl. In addition, overall, significantly less bureaucracy and data protection are needed in the processing of the tests as well as significantly more specialist staff for the subsequent preliminary courses: « Effective funding must follow, otherwise the whole test is not worth it at all, » warns Fleischmann.

« Yes, this is an additional effort, » admits Minister of Culture Anna Stolz (Free Voters) to our editorial team. And the procedure is « particularly complex as long as the processes have not yet settled in ». However, it remains right to promote children with language deficits as early as possible. The Ministry is currently collecting feedback to optimize the procedure, proudly claims: “And we will use it also deal very self -critically..  »