What the SPD education politicians had wanted for a long time – the CDU will implement it in the new Senate: According to information from the Tagesspiegel, the designated new CDU education senator Katharina Günther-Wünsch will be able to work with three state secretaries. Unlike in the past, she does not have to be satisfied with one head of department for education and one for youth, but has a third state secretary who can focus on the Berlin school building offensive.
Torsten Kühne, who has been a city councilor for education in Marzahn-Hellersdorf since 2021, is to receive this post. He previously held the office in Pankow for five years and is considered one of the best experts on all the pitfalls of Berlin school construction. For many years he has been calling for special building rights for schools and better coordinated cooperation between the Senate and the districts.
As state secretary for schools, the physicist should be responsible for so-called external school affairs, including digitization, school meals and school cleaning.
State secretary for internal school affairs – i.e. the precarious supply of staff and all content-related questions – will be the chairwoman of the Berlin Women’s Union, Christina Henke, as the Tagesspiegel learned.
This personality is surprising and should only be made known on Monday at the CDU party conference. The teacher belonged to Günther-Wünsch’s working group, which had negotiated the coalition agreement for education with the SPD.
It had previously leaked out that Neukölln CDU politician Falko Liecke was to become State Secretary for Youth. He has been CDU district chief since 2015 and CDU vice-state chairman since 2019. He is familiar with youth, day care, social and health issues because he has been involved with these departments as a district councilor since 2009. Since then he had repeatedly commented on clan crime and called for earlier intervention in the families.
A third state secretary for school construction was discussed when the Senate was formed in 2021. Instead, the SPD decided at the time to slam the additional post of state secretary in the building administration. The department was also weakened by the fact that Education Senator Astrid-Sabine Busse (SPD) had no political experience. In addition, their state secretaries were not familiar with their respective departments of “education” and “youth”. The unfavorable starting position also included the fact that the digitization of schools was assigned to the Secretary of State for Youth.
