Employers are calling for more ambition in education policy in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. “The fact that our federal state regularly takes the last place in the education ranking or does not take part in evaluations simply cannot be our claim,” criticizes the specialist manager for education and universities of the Association of Business Associations (VU), Susan Bach.
MV descent in the Education Monitor 2023
The reason for this is the education monitor presented on Wednesday by the employer-friendly Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft (INSM), in which Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has dropped from ninth place in 2021 to tenth place in 2022 to eleventh place in a comparison of the 16 federal states. The authors of the study identify deficits in IT training and research in this future-oriented area in particular. The increased rate of those who remain seated and young people who drop out of their vocational training are also mentioned as problems compared to other countries.
No results from MV were included in the most recent nationwide IQB comparative study for fourth graders because not enough schools had participated. The study had shown that fourth graders in Germany have increasing spelling, reading and math problems.
Minister: The education monitor is about economic prosperity
Minister of Education Simone Oldenburg (left) described the education monitor as not meaningful to describe the education system in MV and to bring about improvements. “The initiative for a new social market economy wants to use the education monitor to show the extent to which a federal state’s education system contributes to economic growth and prosperity. That cannot and must not be our primary approach.”
Entrepreneur: It’s about securing the country’s prosperity
The union of business associations vigorously disagreed with Oldenburg on this point. The aim of the annual education monitor is not to contribute to “growth and prosperity in the economy”, but to use the education ranking to show the weak points that slow down growth and thus the protection of a country’s prosperity. “The fact is that Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania often lags behind when it comes to education. We can’t afford that,” stressed Bach.
High dropout rates hurt the economy
She described it as problematic if the economic damage caused by high dropout rates in vocational training is not recognised. “As a society and as an economy, we invest a lot of time and money in the training of young people,” said Bach. In order to research the causes of training dropouts, it was agreed in 2019 in the future alliance MV to commission a study. “The results of the present study were discussed for the last time in the competent state committee for vocational training in 2022,” she reported. However, concrete recommendations for action have not yet been agreed. Bach: “A very unsatisfactory situation.”
