Free Internet Libraries

Germany's Educational System
Cut, pasted, and then outlines from the first few paragraphs of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Germany edited by Walter Antoniotti, 2/6/11

This is very old. Hope it's useful

see Education Strategy US

Good luck

antonw@ix.netcom.com

I. Introduction
   A. The responsibility for the German education system lies primarily with the states (Länder) while the federal government plays only a minor role.
   B. Optional Kindergarten (nursery school) education is provided for all children between three and six years of age, after which school attendance is compulsory, in most cases for 11 to 12 years.
   C. The system varies throughout Germany because each state (Land) decides its own educational policies.
   D. German children only attend school in the morning. There is no provision for serving lunch. There is a lot more homework, heavy emphasis on the "three R's" and very few extracurricular activities.

II. Most children first attend Grundschule from the age of six to ten or 12.

*Percentage of jobholders holding Hauptschulabschluss, Realschulabschluss* or Abitur in Germany:^[4]**
	1970	1982	1991	2000
Hauptschulabschluss	87.7%	79.3%	66.5%	54.9%	Hauptschulabschluss have obtained their leaving certificate at the age of 15/16, they can go into practical vocational training, start work in the public service at basic or secretarial level, or attend a Berufsfachschule (full-time vocational school).
Realschulabschluss	10.9%	17.7%	27%	34.1%	roughly comparable with the American high school diploma^[1] or the British GCSE. It is regularly awarded after ten years of schooling.
Abitur/ Gymnasium	1.4%	3%	6.5%	11%	The gymnasium (German pronunciation: [ɡʏmˈnaːzi̯ʊm]; German plural: Gymnasien), in the German education system, is a type of secondary school with a strong emphasis on academic learning, comparable with the British grammar school system or with prep schools in the United States. The student attending a gymnasium is called "Gymnasiast" (German plural: "Gymnasiasten"). In 2009/10 there were 3094 gymnasien in Germany, with c. 2,475,000 students (about 28 percent of all precollegiate students during that period), resulting in an average student number of 800 students per school.^[1] Gymnasien are generally public, state-funded schools, but a number of parochial and private gymnasien also exists.

III. German secondary education includes four types of school with grades up to 9 - 13 depending on the school.

Hauptschule for vocational education

Hauptschulabschluss exam
after grade 9 or 10
Realschulabschluss exam
(average Maturity)
after grade 10

Realschule broader range intermediate pupils is for technicians

Mittlere Reife exam
after grade 10

Gymnasium
for university education
Abitur exam
after grade 12 or 13.

Gesamtschule (combines the three )

There are also Förderschulen/Sonderschulen.
One in 21 pupils attends a Förderschule.^[2]^[3]

Nevertheless the Förderschulen/Sonderschulen
can also lead, in special circumstances, to a Hauptschulabschluss of both type 10a or type 10b, the latter of which is the Realschulabschluss.

IV. University education is very low-cost or free higher beyond a German Abitur.
      1. Many of Germany's hundred or so institutions charge little or no tuition.
      2. Students must prove through examinations that they are qualified.
           a. Students are, as a rule, required to have passed the Abitur examination;
           b. Since 2009, however, those with a Meisterbrief (master craftman's diploma) have also been able to apply.^[4]^[5]
           c. Those wishing to attend a "university of applied sciences" must, as a rule, have Abitur, Fachhochschulreife or a Meisterbrief.
           d. Pupils are eligible to enter a university or university of applied sciences if they can present additional proof that they
               will be able to keep up with their fellow students (see: Begabtenprüfung and Hochbegabtenstudium)

V. A special system of apprenticeship called Duale Ausbildung allows pupils on vocational courses to do in-service training in a company as well as at a state school.^[3]
VI Recent PISA student assessments demonstrated serious weaknesses in German pupils' performance. In the test of 43 countries in the year 2000,^[6] Germany ranked 21st in reading and 20th in both mathematics and the natural sciences, prompting calls for reform.^[7] In 2006, German schoolchildren improved their position compared to previous years, being ranked (statistically) significantly above average (rank 13) in science skills and statistically not significantly above or below average in mathematical skills (rank 20) and reading skills (rank 18).^[8]^[9]

VII. The PISA Examination also found big differences in achievement between students attending different types of German schools.^[10] According to Jan-Martin-Wiadra:
      A. Conservatives prized the success of the Gymnasium, for them the finest school form in the world – indeed, it is by far the number one in the PISA league table.
          But what they prefer to forget is that this success came at the cost of a catastrophe in the Hauptschulen.^[11]     B. Some German teachers' representatives and a number of scientists disputed the PISA findings.^[12] Claiming among other things that the questions have been ill-translated,
         that the samples drawn in some countries were not representative, that Germans (most of whom had never done a multiple choice tests in their lives before) were discriminated
         against by the multiple choice questions, that the PISA-questions had no curricular validity and that the PISA was "in fact an IQ-test", which according to them showed that dysgenic fertility
         was taking place in Germany.^[13]^[14]^[15]^[16]^[17]^[18]^[19]^C.A 2008 statistic from Nordrhein-Westfalen shows that 6.4 percent of all students did not earn even the Hauptschulabschluss, however not all of them were high school dropouts,
         as many of them were children with special needs, who received special school leaving certificates. Only 3.3 percent dropped out of school without earning any kind of diploma.^[20]