The Ifo Institute for Economic Research surveyed around 9,700 people in Germany between April and June. The samples were also representative at the state level. The respondents agreed that “government spending on schools should increase”: 81 percent of people in Saxony-Anhalt and 85 percent in Thuringia said this.
Questions about migration and regular constitutional education
When asked what influence “migration will have on future student performance,” 74 percent of respondents from Thuringia chose the answer options “rather negative” and “strongly negative.” In Saxony-Anhalt, 68 percent answered the question this way.
According to the survey, 49 percent of respondents from Thuringia are very much in favor of, or rather in favor of, introducing a so-called “constitutional quarter hour” per week in all general education schools, in which passages from the Basic Law or the state constitution should be discussed instead of regular lessons. 36 percent were rather or very much against this. 16 percent were neither for nor against it. The result for Saxony-Anhalt was similar: 46 percent tended to be in favor of such a constitutional quarter hour, 39 were rather or very much against it. 16 percent chose the neither-nor option.
Different study, different ranking
The results of the Ifo barometer for Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt do not quite match those of another recently published survey on education in the federal states: In the annual comparative study by the employer-oriented Initiative for a New Social Market Economy (INSM), which was published at the end of August, Saxony came first, Thuringia fourth and Saxony-Anhalt 11th. But Bremen is also at the bottom of the scale in the INSM education monitor, which examines the education systems of the federal states using 98 indicators.
