In the fight against the shortage of teachers, Thuringia’s Minister of Education Holter had proposed digital lessons with connected classes. The state data protection officer Hasse signals openness, but pleads for a legal regulation.
Erfurt (dpa/th) – Thuringia’s data protection officer Lutz Hasse considers digital lessons with several connected classes to be legally possible. “Mr. Holter’s idea of ??doing something like this across classes is feasible in compliance with data protection law,” said Hasse of the German Press Agency on a proposal from Education Minister Helmut Holter. But it needs a legal basis. This could be consent or the change in the Thuringian school law that is currently being discussed. So far, school administrations have needed parental consent to digital data processing for digital teaching because the school law does not provide for this.
According to Hasse, from a data protection point of view it would be timely to find a legal basis. “The weakness of consent is that it can be revoked at any time – without giving reasons,” said Hasse. First of all, it is a political question, and in a second step it is a question of data protection – “but which has to be clarified”.
Last week, Holter proposed a hybrid variant of digital distance learning in order to alleviate the acute shortage of teachers in Bavaria. It is therefore conceivable that a subject teacher teaches in front of a class – and other classes are connected digitally. However, the minister emphasized that data protection issues had to be clarified. A draft by Red-Red-Green to amend the school law provides for digital distance learning to be included in the school law. However, the Left, SPD and Greens would need four votes from the opposition for adoption. The CDU in particular sees many points in the draft as critical.
Hasse pointed out that such digital forms of teaching must also be technically secure. Data security must be guaranteed and, if necessary, proven. Questions also arose as to how data would be encrypted and deleted again. Hasse warned that a legal regulation must also meet certain requirements in order not to be overturned by the courts.
