No dance school, no soccer training, no party for the 18th, no internship, no class trip, no semester abroad, no concerts, no clubs, no carnival in the day care center, no lantern parade, no meeting friends – alone in the sandpit and alone at home with schoolwork . The list could be updated. Anyone who remembers how formative the experiences were that children and young people cannot have now, knows how they are doing in the corona pandemic.
Primary schools and daycare centers are now a bit open again, but the business is on shaky feet, the elderly are still at home and the country is still a long way from normalcy. What does that do with young people in the long term – around one in five people in Germany is under 20 years of age – and how big will the consequences be for this generation? Experts from business, science and politics are worried, but not only.
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Career preparation suffers
When asked, the Federal Association of Employers’ Associations said that it was difficult to predict how the situation in schools would affect the skills of pupils in the long term. “It is true, however, that the professional orientation is currently suffering.” The chief executive of the Federal Employment Agency, Detlef Scheele, confirms this: hardly any company internships, no career advice at schools, no training fairs. Bernd Fitzenberger, director of the Nuremberg Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research, fears that many young people could fall by the wayside and that their career opportunities could be permanently damaged – with social consequences such as frequent unemployment as a long-term effect. A lost school year means about seven to ten percent lost lifetime income, according to the OECD education director and Pisa manager Andreas Schleicher.
The universities are also cautious with forecasts: There is still no data or knowledge, “but it can be assumed that the learning outcomes of the prospective high school graduates will be negatively influenced by the pandemic situation,” says Peter-André Alt, President of University Rectors’ Conference (HRK).
One year of Corona
And then there is that Psychology and the time perception of children and adolescents. Anyone who remembers how long a few weeks summer vacation felt like as a child can imagine what one year of the Corona state of emergency now means for young people. “That plays a very important role,” says Alexandra Langmeyer, scientist at the German Youth Institute in Munich. For a four-year-old, a year of Corona means a quarter of his life. According to studies, emotional pressure has increased among young people.
Experts in child and adolescent psychiatry see an increase in anxiety, eating disorders and depression. A survey by the universities of Hildesheim and Frankfurt recently showed that many Adolescents and young adults fear the future.
“This time will certainly not have negative long-term effects for all children in the same way,” says Langmeyer. It depends very much on the family how well they cope with the corona situation.
Disadvantaged children are falling behind
Like other experts, the child and adolescent researcher sees the danger of negative long-term consequences for children from poor families increasingly. One observes with concern that many could not be reached during the school closings, according to the employers, who advocate targeted support offers also during the holidays. Kai Maaz, Managing Director of the Leibniz Institute for Educational Research and Educational Information, refers to international studies that have shown particularly large learning deficits after school closings among already poor students and among children and young people from socially disadvantaged families.
On the other hand, he suspects that some students even benefit from one-on-one care at home and expects the crisis to increase the differences in performance in the classes. The educational researcher suggests measures to take countermeasures and to catch up, such as the involvement of extracurricular educational institutions or time-limited learning and teaching opportunities during the holidays.
Generation Corona: There are also positive things
But as with most crises, there may be positive sides here as well: “I believe that Generation Corona is more of a seal of quality than a negative stamp,” says Dario Schramm, General Secretary of the Federal Schools Conference, who himself is about to graduate. Everyone has been boxing their way through this challenging time for a year now.
At the universities, it cannot be ruled out that the current graduates have particular strengths: For most high school graduates, the current situation will also be an important experience in retrospect, despite all the stress, which could undoubtedly help in further coping with self-study, says HRK President Alt.Educational researcher Kai Maaz is fundamentally optimistic:
I believe that the arrears and problems that have arisen can be made up – even if it is a great challenge. Anything else would be a capitulation with unsustainable consequences for the individual and for the system.
Family Minister Franziska Giffey (SPD) also sees no reason for pessimism: “I don’t think we should talk about a lost generation. Anyone who does that has already given up. You can also emerge stronger from difficult times. ”
Source: dpa
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