“The findings we have are alarming,” Stark-Watzinger told the Augsburger Allgemeine. 65 percent of the affected children and young people still have significant learning deficits. “These 183 days when schools were partially or completely closed were wrong,” said the FDP politician. That shouldn’t be repeated. As a lesson from the pandemic, the education system must be fundamentally better positioned and made more crisis-proof. According to Stark-Watzinger, the long-term consequences of the closures are not just the sometimes large learning deficits. There is also loneliness, psychological problems and weight gain among many students. The minister said that many children and young people from socially disadvantaged families were particularly affected by the long-term effects. They now need a lot of support – “otherwise we run the risk of losing them”.
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2023-01-28T05:47:05+0100
This message was broadcast on Deutschlandfunk on January 28, 2023.