Minister of Education of Rhineland-Palatinate from May 2016 to May 2025: responsible for schools, teachers, all-day schools and Kitas — and, in 2020, for steering the Länder through the first pandemic year as KMK President.
Schools of all types, teachers, all-day schools, early-childhood education and language support. In most Länder, teachers are the largest group of public employees, which makes education ministries among the biggest administrations in state government.
On 16 January 2020 Hubig took over the presidency of the Standing Conference of Education Ministers from Hesse, under the motto “Europa – (er)leben und gestalten” (experiencing and shaping Europe). Within weeks the agenda was overtaken by school closures across Germany.
Rhineland-Palatinate’s school policy during COVID-19 was repeatedly contested. In January 2021 the ministry halted planned alternating classes for primary schools four days before they were due to start. In July 2021 the state funded mobile air filters for schools with €12 million, after having long described them as unnecessary, while reducing school testing. Critics saw inconsistency; the ministry pointed to changing infection data and expert advice. Similar dilemmas between keeping schools open and protecting health were faced in every Land.
A new state Kita law (the “Kita-Zukunftsgesetz”) took full effect on 1 July 2021, introducing a regular entitlement to seven hours of continuous care per day. Reports citing dpa referred to more than 1,600 additional posts. The law was contested: the CDU opposition and the education union GEW criticised staffing and implementation.
National IQB comparisons became a recurring point of conflict. In 2019 the CDU opposition accused the government of letting the state slip; Hubig rejected this as scaremongering. After the 2022 results showed a decline in German, the ministry announced more reading and comprehension practice and a mathematics programme (“Mathe macht stark”).
Like every Land, Rhineland-Palatinate faced teacher shortages in the 2020s. Hubig acknowledged difficulties in filling posts in rural areas. Recruitment, lateral entry and cancelled lessons were regular subjects of debate in the Landtag.
The pandemic accelerated the digitalisation of schools nationwide, through the federal–state DigitalPakt and its follow-up negotiations. As coordinator of the SPD-led education ministries from 2024, Hubig was involved in those negotiations at the KMK level. Specific state figures are not reproduced here because no authoritative source was available.
All-day schools, language support and free early-childhood education are the classic instruments of educational equality in German state policy and were part of the ministry’s remit. Their effectiveness is measured, among others, by the IQB studies mentioned above.
Civic education and everyday skills, including consumer education, are cross-cutting tasks of school curricula in all Länder. This site found no authoritative source for specific initiatives by Hubig in these fields and therefore does not attribute any to her.
From January 2024, Hubig coordinated the education ministries led by the SPD (the “A-Länder”) in the KMK — a key negotiating role in federal–state education policy.
Hubig’s education ministry combined administrative continuity — nine years in one post, across three cabinets — with acute crisis management during the pandemic. The record includes a major Kita reform and a national leadership role in the KMK, but also contested decisions on school operations during COVID-19 and disappointing comparative results in core subjects, issues shared with many other Länder.
When she left for Berlin in May 2025, she was succeeded by Sven Teuber (SPD). For criticism from this period presented in full, see Criticism & Controversies.
Some reports on this period come from a specialist trade outlet carrying dpa material; they are used for dates and positions, not for statistics beyond those quoted.