June 2022 — The new school year 2022/23 is already casting its shadow in June this year. Although the new school year does not officially begin until 10 August, the team led by Manuel and Rainer Fischer from the tutoring school »weiter-bilden GbR« and the »Lernstudio Elberfeld« is already facing a lot of work.
Education and participation package
“Almost all of our pupils come from socially disadvantaged — often refugee — families. They therefore receive support from the education and participation package”, knows Rainer Fischer, one of the two bosses at the »Lernstudio Elberfeld«. “The learning support is a sensible and often necessary support. Because it means that tutoring can also be paid for by those who need it most urgently”, Fischer continues. As with all state subsidies, however, an application must be submitted to the responsible office (Wuppertal city council or job centre). And here the devil is in the detail. The approval of the so-called “learning support” always ends at the end of the school year or on 1 July of a year. For each school year, the family must submit a new application and have it countersigned by the child’s school. Here, the school will enter recommendations for subjects and lessons and inform the city or the job centre.
Submit applications in good time!
As many children in a city as large as Wuppertal receive support through the education and participation package, the responsible offices have a lot of work to do. For these reasons, the processing time can often be very long, and it is not uncommon that the families only receive the approvals after the start of a new school year. “We would like to point out that it makes sense to apply for learning support early before the start of the school year so that approval can be given before school starts. This would also give us as a private tuition school corresponding planning security, after all, we have to assign the pupils to the available teachers in a timely and sensible manner. Of course, we can only do this with those who have already received approval”, adds Managing Director Manuel Fischer.
Enormous organisational effort
Last year, a total of well over 200 children were supported through »weiter-bilden GbR« and the »Lernstudio Elberfeld«. About 90 percent of these children receive learning support. Manuel and Rainer Fischer invest an immense amount of organisational effort here, starting with support in the application process and ending with the hourly billing of the teaching units for the monthly accounts, which are in turn submitted to the city or the Jobcenter Wuppertal.
