With the kind request for publication
Lauer affected by BuT study: "We must have the courage to rethink participation"
The district administrator of Saarlouis, Patrik Lauer, expresses concern about the results of the current analysis by the Bertelsmann Foundation on the Education and Participation Package (BuT). The study shows, among other things, that in Saarland only 15.7 percent of eligible children and adolescents receive the monthly support of 15 euros for social and cultural participation. This puts Saarland below the nationwide average of 18.3 percent. Participation is particularly low among 15- to under 18-year-olds. Here, only 6.7 percent of eligible individuals make use of the benefit (nationwide: 12.1 percent).
Although a significantly higher percentage of children are reached in the Saarlouis district due to various measures, the insufficient utilization of the offers remains a completely unsatisfactory finding, according to District Administrator Patrik Lauer.
"The results of the study should alert us all. The numbers absolutely do not prove that children do not need these offers. Rather, they show that the existing offers do not adequately reach many children and adolescents for various reasons."
In the view of the district administrator, however, it is too narrow to limit the discussion exclusively to simplifying the application procedures. That is important but by far not the only lever. "We need less bureaucracy, but above all we need a solution to the fundamental problem," says Lauer. In this context, he renews his persistent demand to fundamentally reorganize the support. His guiding principle: "Everything free for children."
"Instead of organizing participation through various financial individual benefits and complex application procedures, children should have free access to all facilities that serve their development and thus enable genuine participation," explains Lauer.
For him, this includes, for example, a free lunch, free participation in clubs, and further offers from the areas of education, culture, and leisure activities. "Children must be able and allowed to develop. That gives them real educational and life opportunities. Because the past has shown: with the scattergun approach, we do not sufficiently achieve our goals."
Lauer sees the necessary financial leeway for this in a reform of child benefits. For this, the existing system must be consolidated and reformed.
He also feels confirmed in his years-long demand by the study results: "It is incomprehensible that things continue as they are, that child poverty and unequal opportunities grow, and the offers are only inadequately utilized, and yet nothing changes. Money is still being poured into a system that has not proven itself, and then we are surprised that things don't get better."
Therefore, the district administrator calls for a fundamental rethink: "We must be honest about what equality of opportunity requires. It is high time that federal and state politics sit down with practitioners on site—in youth welfare, job centers, or schools—to develop new and sustainable solutions. Our goal must be to provide every child, regardless of their parents' social and financial status, with the same future prospects," says Lauer. "We must have the courage to rethink participation."
The BuT package was introduced in 2011 by the then federal government of CDU/CSU and FDP. The goal was to provide children and adolescents from low-income families with better opportunities to participate in educational and social life and to provide financial support for corresponding needs. This includes, among other things, subsidies for school trips and daycare transport, student transportation, communal lunches, tutoring, as well as offers from the areas of sports, music, and leisure activities.
