Nine-year-old Gymnasium - Permission denied - The end for G9-Popular Initiative?
A parent initiative for a return to the nine-year Gymnasium is facing the possibility of having their people's initiative for a G9 option for all classes dismissed before it can even be submitted. The Interior Ministry in Stuttgart has denied approval, stating that the planned people's initiative is not constitutionally conformant and that the application was submitted by unauthorized trustees of the previous people's initiative.
The applicants have the option to appeal the ministry's decision within two weeks to the Constitutional Court of Baden-Württemberg. However, the question of legitimation may pose a challenge for them. Representatives of the people's initiative "G9 jetzt! BW" announced a reaction in the evening.
G9 is currently only a model project
A parent initiative is fighting for a G9 option for all classes. With the people's initiative, parents aim to give all students at the Gymnasium the opportunity to obtain their Abitur in nine school years starting from 2026.
Currently, in Baden-Württemberg, the eight-year Gymnasium is the standard. G9 exists only as a model project at 44 state schools and some private schools.
The green-black coalition agreed on proposals for fundamental reforms in April. Accordingly, G9 should be introduced to the school year 2025/2026 – initially only for classes five and six. The gyms should also be given the option to offer G8 tracks – however, without receiving additional funds for it.
The people's initiative is based on a popular initiative with over 100,000 votes. According to the organization team, the necessary 10,000 signatures for the submission of the people's initiative were collected upon submission of the documents for the people's initiative. The Landtag rejected the popular initiative in April. Its initiators are no longer part of the team managing the people's initiative. This is where the Interior Ministry sees a violation of the Popular Initiative Act.
Costs not explicitly considered
Furthermore, the ministry considers the implementation of the people's initiative to be unconstitutional because the underlying legislative proposal, in the case of approval in a referendum, would cause significant costs and significantly affect the budget balance and the budget authority of the parliament. For the implementation, personnel costs of around 375 million Euros per year would have to be taken into account. According to the state constitution, no popular initiatives or referendums can take place on the state budget law, the ministry explained.
Moreover, the costs should have been explicitly mentioned as a monetary amount in the legislative proposal. "Instead, only a description of the effort in deputies was presented," it was stated. This does not meet the requirements for the so-called specificity of the legislative proposal in popular initiatives, as the Constitutional Court of Baden-Württemberg ruled in a previous decision.
For a popular initiative, parents would need to collect around 770,000 signatures.
- Despite facing potential dismissal by the Interior Ministry in Stuttgart, a parent initiative in Baden-Württemberg is persistently pushing for a popular initiative to introduce a nine-year Gymnasium (G9) option for all classes, starting from 2026.
- The ministry has cited the initiative as not being constitutionally conformant and claims that the application was submitted by unauthorized trustees of a previous people's initiative.
- The Interior Ministry's denial of approval for the G9 popular initiative in Stuttgart has sparked concern among its supporters, as they now have only two weeks to appeal to the Constitutional Court of Baden-Württemberg.
- The costs associated with implementing the G9 option have been a point of contention, with the ministry arguing that the proposal does not meet the specificity requirements for popular initiatives due to a lack of explicitly mentioned financial implications.
