Stephanie zu Guttenberg has been committed to digital education for over 20 years. In German schools there is often not even WLAN. “It’s a mystery to me how you can’t even do that,” she says in the ntv podcast “So techt Germany”.
Education in Germany can be expanded and, above all, it is not digital. Many schools still use overhead projectors and good old chalk. The digital pact for schools should change that. Launched shortly before the start of the corona pandemic, more than three of the five billion euros available for projects have now been approved. But so far it has brought little. Only 600 million euros have actually been invested.
Stephanie zu Guttenberg notices again and again how much the implementation of digital projects is lacking. If she wants to give workshops in schools as a partner in the education startup BG3000, she and her team often have to bring the WiFi with them. “Only 36 percent of German schools have WiFi,” says zu Guttenberg in the ntv podcast “So techt Deutschland”. Access to the Internet would be the basic requirement for many other projects. “If everyone is just doing their own thing and nothing is moving forward, then we’re doing something wrong,” criticizes the education expert, alluding to federalism.
After all, there are already a few lighthouses in Germany, says Achim Berg, President of the Bitkom digital association. 101 schools are allowed to call themselves “Smart School”. They are digital pioneers. In the podcast, Berg calls for the existing smart schools to be expanded into model schools “that all other schools can use as a guide.” There are currently too many construction sites. In addition to technical, also personal, says Berg: “Above all, there is a lack of teachers who know how to do digital lessons.”
Stephanie zu Guttenberg has had better experiences in the USA. There, new technologies would be integrated much more naturally into the lessons. The teachers are “much more open and progressive,” says zu Guttenberg, noting that she is well aware of the negative sides of American school life.
After the affair surrounding the doctoral thesis of her husband, ex-Federal Minister of Defense Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the couple moved to the USA with their two daughters. Back in Germany, zu Guttenberg is now concerned with bringing the issue of education back into focus. “Rely on it and wait for the state to regulate it – those times are over.”
