Major progress in digitalization at Jena schools

The infrastructure for digital teaching has improved significantly at Jena's schools in recent years. This is the conclusion drawn by the City of Jena's Youth and Education Department after the end of the funding period of the "Digital Pact for Schools 2019 to 2024". As part of this first digital pact, the federal and state governments provided funding to significantly improve the conditions for education in the digital world at schools across Germany. The city of Jena was able to invest a total of over 12 million euros from the federal government and the Free State of Thuringia.

"The fact that Jena's schools were able to benefit from the digital pact to this extent is thanks to the great teamwork of the employees in the administration,"

emphasized Johannes Schleußner, Head of the Department for Education, Youth, Culture and Sport. He paid particular tribute to the team from the media center led by its director Peter Jerie, who is part of the school administration, as well as the budget department led by Birgit Baum.

"Thanks to the good cooperation between all departments involved, close coordination and agile action, it has been possible to create very good conditions for digital learning for the pupils of Jena. In the coming years, digitalization in schools will remain a key task for school development in our city. I am pleased and grateful that we are well positioned to take the next necessary steps."

Funding for digital end devices and technical support

In 2019, the city council decided to implement the Digital Pact in Jena. Funding amounting to 6.7 million euros was already committed that year. In addition, the state of Thuringia had set up a subsidy for support expenses for the municipalities, which enabled around 180,000 euros to be used annually from 2019 to 2024. During the coronavirus pandemic, additional funding was provided for digital devices for pupils and later also for teachers. Support expenses were also covered by the digital pact from 2020.

Over the past few years, the municipal company Kommunale Immobilien Jena (KIJ) has created the necessary conditions for the changeover at all school locations: not only have new network interfaces been set up, but numerous rooms have also been rewired. To ensure that sufficient connection cables were available for the new displays, PCs and other devices, not only did new cables have to be laid, but in some cases new distribution rooms also had to be set up.

Access to various services via the school server

The media center team ensured that all students, teachers and secretaries can use various services via a login. After logging in, they can use mail, cloud, chat, devices and Wi-Fi. All school servers have been converted to a standardized open source system for this purpose. An additional funding priority "Central school services" (Digital Pact Part 3) was applied for for these services, which was funded with 218,000 euros. Even though the individual schools are progressing with digitalization at different speeds, all schools in Jena are now using these services.

Another objective was to equip as many classrooms as possible with an 86-inch screen. Teachers can use this to display content, but it can also be used by pupils to present the results created on their mobile devices. In total, Jena schools have already been equipped with more than 400 of these screens - 170 of them thanks to additional funding last year.

Funding at a glance

• Digital Pact for Schools (notification 1 & 2): 8,268,000.00 euros
• Digital pact server technology media center: 218,000.00 euros
• Additional funding: digital end devices for pupils + special assets: 1,163,000.00 euros
• Additional funding: digital end devices for teachers: €782,000.00 + additional funding: €40,000.00
• Support funds from the state: 904,000.00 euros
• Digital Pact Administration: 773,000.00 euros
  
  = Total amount: 12,148,000.00 euros
  
  Of this, around 5,047,000 euros were invested by KIJ in construction measures, while funds amounting to 7,096,000 euros were spent on school equipment and support.