On September 13, Brandenburg’s Minister of Education Steffen Freiberg handed over the first tablet PCs to Stahnsdorf teachers at the Vicco-von-Bülow-Gymnasium in Stahnsdorf in the presence of District Administrator Marko Köhler. With this campaign, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MBJS) wants to equip schools to meet the challenges of teaching in a digitalized world and ensure equal educational conditions.
On Friday, Education Minister Steffen Freiberg handed over the first 56 Apple iPad 10 tablet PCs to teachers at the Vicco-von-Bülow-Gymnasium in Stahnsdorf in the presence of District Administrator Marko Köhler (Potsdam-Mittelmark). In total, the MBJS has procured 19,000 tablet PCs, which are to be distributed quickly to around 700 schools in Brandenburg. “There are teachers who want to work with Apple and those who prefer Microsoft. We have taken this into account and are responding to the teachers’ wishes,” said Minister Freiberg at the handover in Stahnsdorf. “But digitization is much more than just a device. That is why I would like to thank the District Administrator of Potsdam-Mittelmark, who agreed early on to take over the administration of the mobile digital devices provided for the teachers at the schools under his management.”
By purchasing the tablet PCs, the state of Brandenburg is making an advance payment in order to create the technical prerequisites for the diverse educational settings and to be able to fundamentally meet the associated requirements for good teaching for the time being.
Every teacher and all school assistants in the service of the state of Brandenburg are to receive tablet PCs this year – the MBJS had agreed on this with the Ministry of Finance (MdFE) and the municipal umbrella organizations in the middle of the year. The procurement of the devices was financed from the Digital Pact and through additional state funds. This required an unplanned expenditure in the current financial year, which was approved by the State Parliament’s Budget and Finance Committee. “Good teaching needs reliable digital equipment. It is our common goal and also our common task to create the conditions for this in all schools. Equipping all teachers in state service with mobile digital devices is an important milestone on this path,” said Education Minister Steffen Freiberg in June. On the one hand, the still available funding (around 7.3 million euros) from the Digital Pact will be used for this. On the other hand, the state is making a further 6.5 million euros available from its own financial resources (funds from the MBJS budget) from the current 2024 budget. The funds will be used for the procurement of end devices as well as for necessary software licenses.
The Vicco-von-Bülow-Gymnasium Stahnsdorf will receive a total of 56 Apple iPad 10s for its teachers. The school has 727 students. The school has good facilities: broadband internet access, stable WiFi and presentation technology in all classrooms and specialist rooms. “For students, access to digital worlds is a given these days. iPad classes, a school app, messenger communication or data clouds are part of modern everyday teaching. We have not yet reached our goal with the digitalization of teaching, but today makes us want more,” says Sven Jentzen, deputy head of the Vicco-von-Bülow-Gymnasium.
District Administrator Marko Köhler recalled the years 2017-2018, when the first steps towards digitizing schools were taken. “It started with the introduction of WiFi in schools, which was not a given at the time. We have achieved a lot in a relatively short time. The Vicco-von-Bülow-Gymnasium is a state-of-the-art digital school, as is the Grace-Hope School in Teltow, which was designed as an Apple school from the start. These are the best conditions for the future. The students can rely on us to ensure a high level of equipment in Potsdam-Mittelmark in the future too.
In July, the municipal associations and the MBJS also signed a strategic agreement on the further digitization of schools. The decisive factor here is the joint, coordinated approach to equip schools in Brandenburg for the challenges of digitalized teaching in a future-proof manner and to ensure equal educational conditions.
Photos: Editorial staff
