The legal entitlement to an all-day school place for every primary school child from 2026 offers the opportunity to develop all-day education as a high-quality place of education. This is one of the central findings of a position paper presented by the National MINT Forum’s impulse group “All-Day MINT Education” on Monday in Berlin. The term MINT describes education in the subjects of math, computer science and natural sciences.
“Politics should use this potential, especially with regard to the realization of more equal opportunities and participation in the education system,” said Michael Fritz, Chairman of the Foundation House of Little Researchers and initiator of the impulse group. Extracurricular MINT actors could make a significant contribution to this.
Expand the whole primary school day as a place of education
The position paper names the factors for the success of the project and the impulses that are necessary for a successful design of an all-day offer. “The future legal entitlement offers both an opportunity and an opportunity to expand the entire day of elementary school as a place of education in line with an expanded understanding of education, in which compulsory instruction and the voluntary all-day offer are complementarily interlinked and qualitatively further developed,” says Michael Fritz. This must be thought and planned at eye level, without playing the areas off against each other.
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Such an interlocking is urgently needed, especially with regard to the realization of more participation and equal opportunities in the education system. However, the staff is crucial for an interlinked educational offer: “A clear concept is needed here that must go well beyond the previous distribution of responsibilities: coordination, interlocking, development of responsibilities and competencies that enable them to offer more than supervision and homework help”. said Fritz.
The MINT Forum therefore also calls for a stronger conceptual underpinning of the planned all-day care at primary schools. The whole day must be seen even more as a place of education: “Develop and consolidate as a complementary triad between education, upbringing and care,” according to the impulse group.
To do this, the term “education” must encompass more than just school content and goals. The location of the all-day in child and youth welfare with its expanded concept of education could be “an opportunity for the complementarity of both subsystems – all-day and lessons”.
contribution to equal opportunities
The all-day school should therefore be understood as a place of education that can contribute to more participation and equal opportunities. “All day offers the opportunity, especially in the afternoon hours, to create more participation, especially for children and young people with disadvantages due to their origin,” says the explanation in the position paper.
MINT education has particular potential here, since the MINT disciplines in particular are less “linguistically coded” than, for example, humanities. At the same time, dealing with the real challenges of dealing with nature and technology in language also implicitly promotes language development. “MINT education promotes a sense of achievement early on, which can have an impact on the entire later educational path,” says the position paper.
In addition to equal opportunities, there is also the opportunity to get girls in particular interested in the MINT disciplines at an early stage through targeted offers. “And thus to set the course for equal opportunities in the labor market, regardless of gender and free from clichés,” says the impulse group. In the MINT disciplines, women are underrepresented at universities.
“The whole day has great potential to enable more children, especially from families with low levels of education, to participate in a wide range of educational opportunities at an early stage – and thus give them a much better start,” emphasized educational researcher Kristina Reiss from the German Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech) and member of the impulse group. There is a special opportunity in MINT education because it is easier to access in terms of language. “At the same time, dealing with the real challenges of dealing with nature and technology in language implicitly promotes language development,” says Reiss, who until 2021 was chair of the board of the Center for International Comparative Education Studies (ZIB), which conducts the PISA studies in Germany.
Design all-day offers together with extracurricular providers
Above all, the impulse group also emphasizes the role of extracurricular MINT actors. For this it would be important if the coordinating offices of the all-day offer in the schools were systematically informed about regional and local offers and partners. The aim should be that the all-day educational venue is designed together with the extracurricular MINT providers.
“We are glad that politicians want to further develop the quality of the whole day and that this is also reflected in the current coalition agreement,” said the spokesman for the National MINT Forum. “Extracurricular STEM actors and initiatives are a real asset here: Germany has a large and diverse landscape of extracurricular STEM educational opportunities, and we can be proud of that.” The MINT Forum is available to advise on this.
