Tenth graders at Thuringian grammar schools are currently taking the special performance assessment exams (BLF). If the Minister of Education has its way, this should no longer be the case in the future. There is criticism of that.
Erfurt (dpa/th) – Thuringia’s Education Minister Helmut Holter (left) has nothing against abolishing the tests for special performance assessment (BLF) in Thuringia. “I’m open to the discussion. And if the majority is in favor of abolishing the BLF, then I think it can be abolished,” Holter told the German Press Agency on Friday. The MDR had previously reported. According to Holter, however, it must be regulated that high school students who switch from the tenth to the eleventh grade also receive an equivalent secondary school certificate.
While tenth graders at grammar schools are currently taking the special performance assessment exams, in other federal states moving from tenth to eleventh grade is sufficient to later get the certificate of secondary school leaving certificate. The BLF was introduced in Thuringia in response to the deadly rampage in Erfurt in 2002. One of the reasons for the crime was that the perpetrator was expelled from school without a degree.
According to Holter, it is still completely open whether the BLF could be abolished in the coming year. In the state parliament, among other things, a CDU draft law to change the school law will be discussed next week. “In my view, the subject of special performance assessment must be on the agenda,” said the minister. Then the topic would have to be discussed in the committee and with those affected in the hearing process.
As he knows from the parliamentary area, the majority is in favor of abolishing the BLF and combining a secondary school certificate with the transition to the eleventh grade, Holter said. Green parliamentary group leader Astrid Rothe-Beinlich tweeted: “The
The education policy spokesman for the CDU parliamentary group, Christian Tischner, was opposed: “The special performance assessment has proven its worth in Thuringia,” he told the dpa. It gives the students security on the way to the general higher education entrance qualification and is a role model for similar initiatives in other federal states.
“We must not allow the regular school to be weakened and the high level of performance at the grammar school to be further softened,” emphasized Tischner. If, in the future, students would get their secondary school leaving certificate for almost nothing at high school, while they would have to go through a complex test at regular schools, that would have the exact opposite effect.