2014 – School and education today

In the majority of Germany’s 16 federal states, a pupil’s school career today consists of four years at primary school, five or six years at lower secondary level (Sekundarstufe I) and a further two or three years at upper secondary level (Sekundarstufe II). The states of Berlin and Brandenburg have extended the four-year primary level by two years. Compulsory school attendance begins around the age of six in all states and comprises a total of nine years in most states and ten years in Berlin, Brandenburg, Bremen and North Rhine-Westphalia.
The school system within this framework is diverse, encompassing various types of schools. The primary sector is comparatively uniform, comprising years one to four in most cases. At Sekundarstufe I, with years five to nine (or five to ten) of schooling, a number of different types of school cater for pupils. Hauptschule, Realschule and Gymnasium each teach pupils at a specific level of academic ability. The Hauptschule comprises years five to nine (extending to year ten in Berlin, Brandenburg, Bremen and North Rhine-Westphalia) and provides a basic general education tailored to the assumption that students will progress into vocational training after leaving. Realschule covers years five to ten and offers a more extensive general education with subject options permitting pupils to focus on the sciences, technical subjects or modern languages. The Gymnasium used to comprise years five to thirteen. Since the turn of the millennium the majority of the Länder, however, have opted for a shorter period of eight years (so called G 8) and in 2016 the change was to be completed in all federal states. The reform met with sustained criticism and some states may return to the former situation. The Gymnasium imparts an in-depth general education that prepares pupils for higher education. At the end of year ten, pupils may acquire the intermediate certificate of education (Realschulabschluss) and thus admission to the sixth-form level (gymnasiale Oberstufe) or the upper secondary level (Sekundarstufe II) of the Gymnasium.
The Gesamtschule, Mittelschule, Regelschule, Sekundarschule, combined Haupt- and Realschule, Integrated Haupt- and Realschule, the Regionale Schule and the Erweiterte Realschule are all mixed-ability schools which either teach pupils together in accordance with the comprehensive idea or provide separate courses, for example at Hauptschule and Realschule level, according to ability. The Gesamtschule in particular may exist as a ‘cooperative’ or as an ‘integrated’ institution. The cooperative Gesamtschule encompasses several types of school under one roof, where pupils are taught separately according to the recommendation given by their primary teachers. The integrated Gesamtschule, however, teaches all pupils together and ‘streams’ pupils in the core subjects according to ability.
In the majority of federal states, an ‘orientation phase’ in years five and six postpones the decision on which type of school a pupil will attend (Gymnasium, Realschule or Hauptschule) until a later date and reduces the social inflexibility of the three-tiered school system. Although Germany largely continues to favour a multi-tiered school system, which assigns pupils to different types of schools at an age earlier than in most other industrialised nations, numbers of pupils per school year taking the Abitur have increased since educational expansion commenced, from 11 per cent in 1970 to 29 per cent in 2005. The proportion of all 18- to 20-year-olds gaining university entrance qualifications (including qualifications giving students access to the universities of applied sciences, or Fachhochschulen) was about 43 per cent in 2005 and about 49 per cent in 2012. These figures demonstrate that participation in advanced education has increased substantially, and that this increase has included those from social groups not traditionally associated with higher levels of education. This improvement in participation does not, however, mean that equality of educational opportunity has been established, with gaps in opportunity between various social groups remaining relatively consistent. The fact that children from across the social spectrum are increasingly taking part in advanced education is perhaps primarily a result of changes in the job market and within families, although educational expansion itself no doubt has a role to play, the inflation of educational qualifications it has engendered compelling successive generations to strive more intensely for a good education. Those who currently tend to fall behind in this race appear to be primarily the children of immigrants, whose share of the pupil population has been on the increase since the 1980s.
There is no state monopoly on schools, meaning that private or church-run schools exist alongside the state schools that are funded by municipalities, local authorities working in cooperation, or by the federal states, and which do not charge for attendance. Numbers of private schools and schools run by Germany’s two main Christian churches have been increasing in recent years. Private schools are protected by law and are labelled ‘substitute schools’ (Ersatzschulen) or ‘complementary schools’ (Ergänzungsschulen), depending on whether they completely replace attendance at a state school or merely provide additional educational services. They require state approval; once this is gained, the qualification certificates they issue are officially recognised as equivalent to qualifications gained at state schools and they are provided with financial support.
Basing their actions on the federal legislative framework at federal level as laid down by the Federal Ministry of Education, the Ministries of Education of the individual federal states take decisions on the structure of the school system in the Land in question, its curricula and the training, employment and remuneration of teachers. The school supervisory authorities of the federal states monitor such ‘internal’ matters. Towns, cities and municipalities, which fund the schools, take responsibility for ‘external’ matters such as the construction and maintenance of school buildings and the employment and payment of non-teaching staff. Schools themselves enjoy only limited autonomy, although there have been calls to increase it in the arenas of financial management and staffing as a way of maximising individual schools’ performance. The Federal and State Commission for Educational Planning and Research Funding (Bund-Länder-Kommission für Bildungsplanung und Forschungsförderung, BLK) and the Standing Conference of State Education Ministers (Ständige Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder) serve as permanent bodies for discussions on education policy in the federal system.
State education ministers have authority to approve textbooks for use in general schools via a complex procedure. As all federal states develop their own curricula, each textbook must be approved for use in the classroom by each federal state separately. Many states do not require textbooks for Sekundarstufe II to go through approval procedures. The ministries of education in Saarland, Berlin and Schleswig-Holstein have now ceased to subject textbooks to individual approval procedures. This might possibly point towards a general move away from approval procedures on the part of education ministries. Which books are actually used in the classroom is the decision of teachers, initially taken collectively by meetings of all teachers of a specific subject and ultimately ratified at a school-wide meeting of teachers (Schulkonferenz), which also includes parent representatives.
The German school system’s performance internationally has revealed a need for modernisation. Instead of a blanket approach to education reform, which would be difficult to implement given the federal system in German education policy, individual states have begun their own initiatives. Curricula have been revised and reduced, schools have been given more scope to make decisions, stricter quality control has been introduced via centrally organised nationwide examinations, binding, standardised learning objectives have been drawn up and changes have been made to teacher training. Reforms to curricular content and teaching practices have the aim of encouraging pupils to think and work more independently and train their problem-solving abilities and ‘joined-up’ ways of thinking.


Susanne Grindel
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