What the AfD’s Proposed Changes to School Inclusion Would Mean for Families in Sachsen-Anhalt
A plan to dismantle inclusive education
The AfD in Sachsen-Anhalt has announced it would end what it calls the “failed experiment” of school inclusion if it wins the state election on 6 September 2026. Children with disabilities would be taught only at special-needs schools, known as Förderschulen. Regular schools would focus solely on reading, writing, arithmetic and “preservation of educational goods,” dropping social and psychological support as well as integration and inclusion.
Why inclusion is especially fragile in Sachsen-Anhalt
Germany signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2009, committing to inclusive education. But implementation varies wildly between states. Sachsen-Anhalt already has one of the lowest inclusion rates in the country. Around 5,000 children with special educational needs attend inclusive schools there. Many parents choose Förderschulen anyway because regular schools lack special-education teachers and classroom assistants.
What the AfD platform actually proposes
The party’s main author on education policy, Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, has said inclusion “paralyses” the progress of regular classes. Under the AfD plan, a child’s right to attend a regular school would be replaced by a case-by-case assessment by the state. Tillschneider later told Deutschlandfunk that the complete abolition might not apply to children with physical disabilities, only to those with intellectual disabilities who “repeatedly fail to meet class objectives.” Parents would have less say in the placement decision.
The legal and practical obstacles
The AfD would need only a simple majority in the Landtag to change the School Act. However, state inclusion is protected by the 2009 UN convention and, indirectly, by the German Constitution, which guarantees state supervision of schools. The Federal Constitutional Court has previously affirmed the principle of compulsory schooling, which the AfD also wants to weaken by allowing home-schooling with half-yearly tests. Changing the state constitution’s school attendance clause would require a two-thirds majority.
A legal opinion commissioned by the Federal Association of Free Alternative Schools (BFAS) concluded that a determined AfD-led government could still exert significant pressure through staff approvals, textbook control, and bureaucratic harassment of inclusive schools.
What this means for schools and families
Teachers and parents’ associations have warned that ending inclusion would force children with disabilities out of their peer groups and back into segregated settings. FDP parliamentary leader Andreas Silbersack has a son in an inclusive class in Halle and said he would fight any move to remove him “with everything available to me outside politics.”
Inclusive schools are already preparing legal challenges. The BFAS has a standing legal opinion to use if the state tries to force changes. Parent petitions have also started. The question for any future government will be whether the constitutional and international-law protections for inclusion can withstand a political push to end it.