Munich (dpa/lby) - Around 95 percent of the Bavarian municipalities have applied for funding from the digital pact of the federal and state governments for the digitization of their schools. "The available funds of around 700 million euros have been applied for in full. I am extremely pleased about that, because the money from the digital pact goes where it is needed: in the education and training of young people," said Minister of Education Michael Piazolo (Freie voters) on Friday at the request of the German Press Agency in Munich. In total, there were more than 3,000 applications from 2,417 school and regional measures to digitize schools.
The application deadline expired on June 30th. The Digital Pact School consists of several parts. It was launched in 2019 to expand the infrastructure in the schools. The federal government is giving 5 billion euros for this. The federal states had increased federal funds to 7.15 billion euros. The term of the digital pact ends in 2024.
The applications ranged from setting up digital classrooms with modern technology such as smart screens to further expanding the school network infrastructure with stable and powerful WiFi. Future technologies such as virtual reality or special requests such as robots or programmable drones have also been requested. To strengthen vocational training, a range of job-specific IT equipment is also being funded, from patient simulators in nursing training to 3D welding simulators to the digitally controllable equipment of a smart kitchen.
