German primary school students should no longer be taught English, and instead teachers should dedicate this time to improving their German reading and mathematics skills, the president of the German Teachers’ Association, Heinz-Peter Meidinger, has said.
Meidinger told German public broadcaster ARD on Friday that focusing on English lessons was setting the wrong priorities.
“We believe that English lessons are indeed dispensable, and that they can be shifted to, for example, reading lessons,” Meidinger said. “We have to pay more attention to the basics at primary schools: reading skills, writing skills, arithmetic.”