Friedrichshafen (dpa / lsw) – Visitors to adult education centers (VHS) in the southwest may soon have to dig deeper into their wallets. The reason: The VAT exemption for further training is called into question by EU law. “If the exemption is removed, the participants will have to pay 19 percent more for our offers,” said the director of the Adult Education Association of Baden-Württemberg, Tobias Diemer, of the German Press Agency. Low earners, students or pensioners might then no longer be able to afford the courses.
It cannot be that adult education centers are put on an equal footing with providers of goods or services, criticized Diemer at the VHS annual conference this Friday in Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance. Continuing education is a human right that everyone should be able to exercise, he said.
“Like public schools, universities and colleges, we meet the criterion of being oriented towards the common good,” said Diemer. Consequently, VHS courses are exempt from sales tax under German law. The federal government must work to ensure that it stays that way. The 161 VHS nationwide are increasingly concerned with important social tasks and issues: from local climate protection, social cohesion to the integration of people from different cultures to the fight against illiteracy.
The participants in the southwest would have to pay more than 50 percent for the courses, the highest in Germany. The municipalities would contribute 28.5 percent, the state 9 percent. The remaining financing is accounted for by project and third-party funds.
State funding must be increased, Diemer demanded, so that the offers would remain accessible to everyone. The state is providing the providers of general further training with a gradual increase in state funding by 8 million to 36 million euros by 2025. However, the VHS association had calculated that 2.87 million euros would still be needed this year due to inflation and tariff increases.
Due to corona, the number of customers fell from 2.24 million in 2019 to 1.22 million in 2020 and 900,000 in 2021. Offers such as exercise, cooking and nutrition courses were often omitted. In 2022, the number of visitors rose again by 570,000 to 1.47 million – and according to initial reports from the VHS, the value could return to the pre-corona level this year. Despite many digital and hybrid courses developed during the pandemic, face-to-face courses remain the most popular, it said.
Changed user behavior is causing problems for the VHS. According to Diemer, people would prefer events that can be booked at short notice. “A lot of people don’t want to register for a course three months or three weeks in advance anymore.” Equipment and quality of stay in the adult education centers and their 650 branch offices would also play an increasingly important role.
The association director was satisfied with the state’s digital package of 6.7 million euros for equipping the course rooms with electronic boards (smartboards), projectors and laptops. As a result, all VHS in the state are able to offer digitally supported offers in person and professional online courses.
A particularly big challenge is the rapidly increasing number of integration courses for immigrants. Last year, more than 2,000 integration courses for more than 37,000 people were pounded out of the ground in the southwest. Diemer appealed to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees to put a stop to the excessive bureaucracy – for example in the settlement of reimbursement. It keeps employees from doing their actual job. Finding qualified instructors is also difficult. In addition, some course rooms would be missing. “All of this leads to waiting lists for immigrants of up to several months,” said Diemer.
The adult education center would see it as their task to attract specialists, explained the educationalist. Additional staff are needed in the facilities to exploit the potential of immigrants. Further training guides are needed to help the participants in the integration courses find their way into the labor market either directly or through training and further education.
© dpa-infocom, dpa:230623-99-157322/2
2023-06-23 05:06:46
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