Comment: Germany needs a compulsory program for the little ones

Many children in Germany are left behind when they start school. Your language skills are not sufficient to follow the lessons. Some people can't hold a pen. Despite having a school bag, you hardly have a chance of a successful educational biography. It is pathetic that education policy has hardly done anything for these school losers for years.

If a clear majority of Germans now consider a compulsory preschool year and language tests for four-year-olds to be necessary, as the current Ifo education barometer shows, then this must also be seen as a rebuke for the lethargy of politics to date.

Germany has been resigned to poor performance for too long. Studies have repeatedly shown the deficits. As was the case recently with the Pisa study, in which students from Germany performed worse than ever before. However, the courage for a comprehensive reform strategy was lacking.

What is becoming increasingly clear is that targeted support is needed even before school. Children from parents with little knowledge of the German language or with low formal educational qualifications as well as children from households at risk of poverty do not have the same educational opportunities as the offspring of educated and wealthy parents. You can complain about that, but you have to finally deal with it.