BL cantonal council Basel-Landschaft must take measures against heat in the classroom

The canton of Baselland must take measures against classrooms that are too hot. After a heated debate, the cantonal parliament passed a corresponding postulate by Jan Kirchmayr (SP) on Thursday by 48 votes to 25 with 2 abstentions, against the will of the government.

Kirchmayr called for measures to keep the indoor climate bearable in summer. In addition, the government must submit corresponding recommendations for action to the schools.

The government rejected the motion. According to the response to the motion, there is simply no simple solution that can be implemented in the short term in the existing buildings with a reasonable cost-benefit ratio. In addition, individual solutions would have to be found for each school location.

Government President Isaac Reber (Greens) said that the demands in the postulate could not be met overnight given the large number of school buildings. He also pointed out that the schools are not even in operation for six weeks during the hot season.

SP proposal also convinces some members of the Commons

The majority of parliament, however, saw an urgent need for action. Several councillors pointed out that the conditions for a good learning environment absolutely had to be met. For this reason, Marc Scherrer (center), for example, supported the referral.

However, he appealed to Kirchmayr to modify his proposal in order to gain more support. The postulant did just that. He deleted the adjective "short-term" from the requested measures and dispensed with the example of installing ceiling fans in order to keep the motion more open to various heat measures.

The request was also heard by parts of the FDP parliamentary group - Christine Frey and Thomas Eugster, for example, supported the SP postulate. However, a majority of the FDP and SVP did not support the postulate.