Germany’s federal government and the 16 states have agreed a package that provides funding for equipping schools with laptops and modern IT infrastructure for the next six years, Education Minister Cem Özdemir announced in Berlin on Friday.
Each side is to put up €2.5 billion ($2.6 billion) for Digital Package 2.0.
“We have to prepare our schools for a world that is digitally shaped,” Özdemir said, adding that this fact would place its stamp on the children’s future to a large extent. Training teachers would be a focus of the new package, he said.
Özdemir said talks had broken through in the final stages, even if the package’s future would depend on future governments and their budgets. But he also expressed confidence that no German government would be able to bypass the agreement.
The two sides had wrangled over the agreement for months, and the talks had become bogged down under former Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger, whose liberal FDP left the three-party coalition last month.
The FDP left the government over the 2025 budget last month, precipitating early elections on February 23.
