Overview

• Hesse’s public schools now prohibit private use of smartphones, tablets and smartwatches, with stricter rules in primary grades and limited exceptions in secondary schools.
• The state also introduced a schoolwide weapons ban, rolled out an AI chatbot and a values platform, and raised teaching posts to 61,660 alongside more school-psychologist positions, while unions and the opposition argue shortages persist and many hires lack pedagogical training.
• Rheinland-Pfalz has abolished unannounced homework checks, requiring that written and oral reviews be announced when assignments are set, a change praised by GEW and VBE and criticized by the Philologenverband and the CDU.
• Rheinland-Pfalz reports 99.6% of teacher plan posts filled and about 45,000 teachers, and it is piloting an AI learning assistant for German along with SAFE cloud storage and a unified work email for staff.
• Saarland plans an “Allianz für Sprachförderung und Teilhabe” to strengthen early language support and improve transitions from daycare to primary school, citing high shares of entrants with limited basic competencies.