Germany
Germany
| Basic Data | |
| Official Country Name: | Federal Republic of Germany |
| Region: | Europe |
| Population: | 82,797,408 |
| Language(s): | German, Turkish |
| Literacy Rate: | 99% |
| Number of Primary Schools: | 17,892 |
| Compulsory Schooling: | 12 years |
| Public Expenditure on Education: | 4.8% |
| Foreign Students in National Universities: | 165,977 |
| Libraries: | 14,372 |
| Educational Enrollment: | Primary: 3,859,490 |
| Secondary: 8,382,335 | |
| Higher: 2,131,907 | |
| Educational Enrollment Rate: | Primary: 104% |
| Secondary: 104% | |
| Higher: 47% | |
| Teachers: | Primary: 224,517 |
| Secondary: 542,383 | |
| Higher: 274,963 | |
| Student-Teacher Ratio: | Primary: 17:1 |
| Female Enrollment Rate: | Primary: 104% |
| Secondary: 103% | |
| Higher: 44% |
History & Background
The Federal Republic of Germany, with its population of 80.8 million, lies at the heart of the European Union. It shares borders with nine neighboring countries and is a key member of the European Union. It is a densely populated country, with 230 residents per square kilometer, as compared to only 26 per square kilometer in the United States. Its 143,000 square miles (357,000 square kilometers) measure only 370 miles (640 kilometers) from west to east and about 500 (or 876 kilometers) from north to south. Because the country lacks natural resources, its highly educated workforce constitutes Germany's most important economic asset; thus, education and vocational training enjoy high prestige and financial and administrative support.
Germany's 780,000 teachers in 52,400 schools educate more than 12 million pupils. Over the past decade, the educational institutions of the Federal Republic of Germany have confronted the challenge of increasing numbers of immigrant children. The country's labor force is made up of 12 percent foreigners, and half of them are from Turkey. Approximately 7.4 million non-Germans live within the country's borders, and most of them in the West. In the 1990s the country experienced an influx of immigrants from the former Soviet Republics, many of them ethnic Germans, although not necessarily proficient in the German language. Because of Germany's citizenship laws, descendants of ethnic Germans may become citizens with relative ease, while those from non-German backgrounds may not, despite generations of residency in the country. As a result, these people, many of them Turks, often retain their own language and culture rather than seeking to assimilate; their presence has obliged schools to confront ethnic and religious diversity. In some urban schools in the West, the proportion of immigrant pupils may be as high as 70 percent.
German public education officially began in 1763, when Frederick the Great of Prussia mandated regular school attendance from the ages of 5 through 13 or 14. The denominational or confessional school remained the norm throughout Prussia (which encompassed the Rhineland and most of modern Germany) during the nineteenth century. Teachers often worked as sextons or church organists, and clergymen served as school inspectors. Catholic and Protestant (Lutheran) areas of Germany were geographically separate, facilitating religious oversight of local schools. In Prussia, efforts to establish schools in which Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish children could receive a common instruction, separated only for classes in religion, failed, despite several serious efforts at reform. In the cities, free, public schools educated children of the working class, while public schools, which charged some fees, attracted children of middle class families and offered a more rigorous curriculum. Women, in low numbers, entered the teaching profession in the late 1800s.
After the Napoleonic era, the responsibilities of the Gymnasium (a secondary school preparing boys for university admission) was expanded to include the preparation of civil servants, a task later assumed by the intermediate secondary schools. By 1900 the Gymnasium had developed three basic models providing for a specialization in the classical languages, modern languages, or mathematics and science. Girls were not admitted to the Gymnasium until 1908 and not admitted to Prussian universities until 1910.
In 1920 Germany introduced the four-year unified public elementary school that provided the same instruction to all children. School attendance until age 18 became compulsory. Another significant change was the requirement that even teachers in the elementary school must have passed the Abitur, the qualifying test for university admission. The basic types of schools in Germany before 1945 were the Volksschule (the four-year common elementary school), Mittelschule (the six-year middle school) which followed it, and the academically rigorous Gymnasium. While non-denominational schools prevailed in Bremen, Hamburg, Baden, Hesse, Saxony, and Thuringia, more than 90 percent of Prussian children attended a denominational school throughout the 1930s. The teaching of history and religion in Prussia aimed to fortify citizens' resistance to the doctrines of the Communists and Social Democrats.
Hitler's National Socialists abolished church-run primary schools. The post World War II influx of 12 million refugees, many of them expelled from German territories assigned to Poland, mixed religious boundaries and further weakened the churches' role in education. In the 1960s West Germany began to phase out small rural schools in favor of larger regional schools where children could be grouped according to age level. This movement effectively ended denominational distinctions in public schooling.
From the renaissance through the nineteenth century, religion played a role in higher education as well. Monasteries became centers of scholarship and learning. Early universities prepared men for the ministry or priesthood. Heidelberg, the first university on German soil, opened its doors in 1386, followed by the universities of Leipzig in 1409, and Rostock in 1419. During the early centuries of their existence, instruction at these universities occurred in Latin. Traditionally, German universities offered education in theology, law, philosophy (including the natural and social sciences and the humanities), and medicine. During the Hitler era, teachers and university faculty were required to swear a loyalty oath to National Socialism, and freedom of expression was sharply curtailed. About 300 Jewish university professors were driven out, causing a huge loss of scholarly, scientific, and intellectual capacity. Girls were discouraged from pursuing higher education and lost the gains they had made during the first twenty years of the century.
After World War II, the country was divided into the Federal Republic of Germany, consisting of the French, British, and American sectors in the West, and the German Democratic Republic in the east, which was under the dominance of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). In the west, the Allies undertook a process of removing Nazi ideas from the country's schools. However, West German education did not undergo substantial reforms after World War II because the occupying powers had high respect for the German academic secondary school and universities. Moreover, the differing educational systems of France, Britain, and the United States made it impractical to apply any single new model in the western zone. Colleges of education founded after the war were denominational in character, and the teaching of religion was mandated in the 1949 Basic Law, or constitution, of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Gradually some modest changes made the system more democratic. One such change was the reducing or eliminating the cost of textbooks and school materials to parents and making six years of a common primary education, rather than only four, the norm. By and large, however, the chief features of early twentieth century education were retained through the 1950s: stratification with different types of schools, teachers, and pupils; the dual system of vocational training and general education; centralized decision-making at the state level; and the processes of grading and selection throughout the school system. In 1953 just 3.3 percent of any given age group earned the Abitur (the examination certifying satisfactory completion of the academic secondary school) or Gymnasium, entitling the graduate to university admission; 90 percent of those so qualified actually entered a university. However, because war veterans received preference for scarce study spaces in the country's war-damaged universities, girls stood a much poorer chance than males; only about half the female recipients of the Abitur actually continued on to university study. Only 6.1 percent of any age cohort completed the elementary school and six-year Realschule (an intermediate secondary school preparing civil servants and other administrative employees). The largest number, 63.3 percent, of any age cohort left full-time schooling around the age of 15 and continued with mandatory part-time education until 18, while working or participating in a vocational training program.
Twenty-four new universities sprang up in West Germany in the 1960s and 1970s, including the distancelearning center at Hagen established in 1975. In 1969 the federal government in Bonn assumed some authority over education, which had previously been entirely under the jurisdiction of the 11 federal states. The federal government increased uniformity and standardization in vocational training and the Abitur, the university admissions qualifying test.
In 1964 the Social Democratic Party questioned the adequacy of the West German educational system and, after lengthy inquiries, the German Parliament declared it to be in a state of emergency. Compared to similar European industrialized nations, relatively few German youth continued full-time schooling until 18, fewer German youth entered university study, and federal spending on education comprised a relatively small portion of the total national budget. The national investigations also found significant differences in educational opportunity and quality between regions. Some of these differences included class size, provisions for foreign language study, the supply of qualified teachers, and the numbers of school leavers attaining appropriate certificates or diplomas. Educational leaders warned of an anticipated shortfall of skilled workers able to adapt to new developments in technology. Their report recommended reducing the importance of parental status and social connections in decisions about children's secondary education and basing these decisions solely on children's abilities. The report also documented significant gender inequities in education: more girls than boys left full-time schooling at an early age, fewer continued into the Realschule or Gymnasium, and girls' choices of educational paths were most likely to be based on their fathers' occupations. Girls from rural areas, working-class backgrounds, and from Catholic families fared the worst.
The findings of this nationwide inquiry resulted in a number of significant reforms. A two-year orientation phase in grades five and six was introduced to give schoolchildren more time to consider future educational choices. The number of academic subjects required for the Abitur was reduced in 1960; in 1972, students were given the option of concentrating in a few specialized subjects. However, complaints from universities that this step weakened the general preparation of incoming students forced a partial rollback of Abitur reforms. The percentage of young people continuing their education into the Realschule, Gymnasium, or university doubled. However, these increases created a larger supply of better educated workers than the job market could fully absorb.
Further reforms had a more direct effect on the teaching profession. The role of pedagogy in teacher preparation was expanded, and the hours devoted to the study of teaching methods increased to about one-fourth of the total. From the mid-1970s through most of the 1980s, the country experienced an oversupply of teachers, and fewer new teachers were hired. A Federal Ministry of Education and Science, established in 1969, was combined in 1994 with the Ministry of Science and Technology. However, attempts to increase federal authority over planning and coordination disintegrated in the early 1970s, in part due to disagreements between the political parties. In general, the Social Democrats favored greater national oversight, while the more conservative Christian Democrats advocated state autonomy.
Reforms got underway in higher education as well. In 1971 the federal government began providing financial aid to students (which states had done since 1957) in an attempt to democratize higher education. Hochschulrahmengesetz (a law for the reform of higher education) passed in 1975 and was aimed at greater nationwide unification of this level of instruction. Fachhochschulen (new polytechnic schools) were introduced in the late 1960s and early 1970s. More comprehensive and technical universities were founded. Untenured professors and staff gained a voice in university governance, alongside senior professors who held university chairs. Critics demanded a more practical orientation for courses of university study in the mid-1970s, but effected little change in this area. And, despite objections, universities retained their emphasis on research over student-centered learning.
Nonetheless the balance between higher education and vocational training shifted between 1980 and 1990. In 1980 apprentices outnumbered university students two to one; however, a shortage of apprenticeships in the late 1980s motivated more adolescents to enter universities. By 1990 the number of university entrants surpassed the number of young people beginning an apprenticeship. University enrollment grew by about 75 percent between 1977 and 1992, but increases in faculty, staffing, and facilities failed to keep pace, resulting in serious over-crowding.
In 1981 only about 38 percent of those who actually enrolled in higher education were women (the proportion is 40 percent in West Germany in 2001). Women were still less likely than men to actually begin higher education, more apt to concentrate in the arts and humanities, and more likely to drop out of higher education. At the Fachhochschulen, women concentrated chiefly in traditionally female areas such as health professions and social work. Although significantly more young women began to enter apprenticeships, many completed only a two-year course, which was considered inferior to a full course of vocational training.
While the Federal Republic of Germany maintained many features of the system of education inherited from the Weimar Republic, the socialist German Democratic Republic created an entirely new educational system after World War II. The intention of this new educational system was to sever all connections between religion and schooling, eliminating differences between rural and urban areas, the educational opportunities for boys and girls, and social classes.
Schools in the Soviet zone of occupation re-opened in October of 1945. This was quite a feat, given that many school buildings had been damaged, teachers had been killed or displaced, and the region was forced to cope with the influx of ethnic Germans. Eliminating Nazi influence was carried out more rigorously than in the West: three-fourths of the teaching force was fired for having sworn the mandatory oath of loyalty to the National Socialists. Approximately 15,000 new teachers, young and hastily trained, entered the classroom in 1945. Almost 23 years later, 93 percent of the country's teachers had been trained since World War II. The replacement of such a large portion of the teaching profession gave the German Democratic Republic an opportunity to start anew.
Control over the educational system was centralized at the national level, with the Ministry of Education carrying out directives formulated in the Central Committee of the ruling Socialist Unity Party. The Ministry produced textbooks and detailed schedules for their use, including timed lesson plans. Deviation from this centralized curriculum was discouraged by the widespread fear of exposure for failing to promulgate the official doctrines of the socialist state.
A school reform in May 1946 eliminated the three-part secondary education system inherited from the Weimar Republic, which separated students into vocational, managerial, and academic tracks. Further reforms in 1958 and 1959 established 10 years of compulsory education in the polytechnic school, which all pupils attended, following a uniform curriculum, free of militaristic, racist, religious, or imperialist teachings. Pupils in grades 7 through 10 worked a few hours each week to become accustomed to industrial production and to develop solidarity with the working class.
Through the 1950s and early 1960s, East German educators furthered their efforts to utilize education to overturn social class. Achievements of the peasants and working class were highlighted in history, literature, and the social sciences. Children whose parents belonged to the worker and peasant classes received preference in admission to higher education, while those whose parents opposed the Socialist Unity Party might be denied access. Some offspring of white-collar professionals, the landed aristocracy, enemies of the socialist state, and some adherents of organized religion were sent into apprentice-ships and factories. Arbeiter- und Bauern-Fakultäten (special adult education courses), in existence from 1946 to 1962, were offered for workers, former soldiers, and returning political prisoners. About 25 percent of all university students entered higher education through this path. Gradually, the process of social and political selection was accomplished through polytechnic schools and the Freie Deutsche Jugend (socialist Free German Youth groups) present in every educational institution; the Arbeiter- und Bauern-Fakultäten were discontinued. Only about 12 percent of the country's pupils continued their education into the university, for the country's leaders guarded against the emergence of an over-educated, under-employed elite, which might foment a rebellion. Not everyone could accept the political restrictions on academic freedom. Between the country's founding in 1949 and the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, about 2,700 university faculty and 35,000 students moved west.
Nonetheless, the German Democratic Republic did introduce some more democratic elements into its educational system. Schoolbooks and materials were free for all pupils, in contrast to West Germany where the costs of such items as uniforms and school supplies sometimes kept poorer children out of the college-preparatory high school, the Gymnasium. From the first, East German schools were coeducational. A 1950 Law for the Promotion of Youth decreed that all children, regardless of gender, should receive the same education, vocational training, higher education, and access to sports. The school day was organized to provide childcare as well as instruction. Children ate a hot noonday meal at school and could remain in school through the late afternoon in the Schulhort, where teachers and assistants supervised homework, extra-curricular activities, and sports. All schools included Young Pioneer groups for children under the age of 14 and Free German Youth organizations for older children. While these groups have been depicted, since unification, as a means of political indoctrination, parents acknowledge that they also fostered group work and cooperation and gave children a certain grounding in civic responsibility. They also provided vacation lodgings and summer camps and sponsored a broad range of school and vacation activities. Although the original intent was to equalize education for all children, educators soon recognized the need for higher levels of instruction for those destined for college or university study. The Erweiterte Oberschule (extended secondary school) was introduced in 1960 to provide a three-year course of study beyond the polytechnic school and to prepare students for higher education.
Occupational choices were made in consultation with pupils, parents, school administrators, teachers, and local authorities. In general, pupils were encouraged to choose occupations projected to be needed in the country's economic five-year plans. In balance, however, workers who succeeded in their careers enjoyed a plethora of opportunities to retrain or qualify themselves for entirely different careers. The entire educational system emphasized practical work applications and a solid grounding in Marxism-Leninism, as well as mandatory instruction in Russian. In recompense, citizens were guaranteed life-long employment, a principle that became increasingly difficult to sustain as manufacturing and technology developed through the 1980s. Furthermore, it became evident that the country's educational system emphasized cooperation and productivity at the expense of inventiveness, critical thinking, analytical skills, and creativity. One drawback was a perpetual lag in the development of technological innovation, particularly in engineering and computer science.
During the 1950s and 1960s, the Federal Republic of Germany also introduced a number of reforms to broaden access to its educational system. The number of intermediate secondary schools designed to train managers, civil servants, and white-collar employees increased. New Fachschulen (secondary technical schools) were introduced. The numbers of college-preparatory secondary schools in rural areas increased. The new two-year orientation phase for fifth and sixth graders, which appeared in some states, provided more time for teachers and parents to assess whether schoolchildren could best further their education in the Hauptschule (general secondary school) and continue into a vocational school to learn a trade or enter the Realschule or Gymnasium.
Reunified in 1990, the Federal Republic of Germany in 2001 encompasses 16 federal states, 11 in the West (Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Rhineland Palatinate, North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Lower Saxony, the Saarland, Schleswig-Holstein, and the 3 city-states—Hamburg, Bremen, and Berlin) and 5 (the so-called new federal states of Thuringia, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg, and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania) that formerly made up the German Democratic Republic. With unification, West German law became the law of the land and, thus, a massive restructuring of the East German educational system began. Beginning in the 1992-1993 school year, the West German multi-track system of schooling was introduced into the new federal states to replace the 10-year, homogenous polytechnic school. Retaining the egalitarian ideals of socialism, the new federal states created an educational system less stratified than that of the West; most offer a two-track model of secondary education rather than the tripartite division commonplace in the West. Saxony, for instance, uses the orientation phase in grades 5 and 6, and a Mittelschule (middle school) for grades 5 through 10, which combines both the Hauptschule and Realschule. Pupils can enter either of those institutions or the Gymnasium at the end of fourth, fifth, or sixth grade. Courses in Russian were no longer required, and Marxism-Leninism disappeared from the curriculum. Most teachers and university faculty in disciplines such as civics, social studies, history, economics, and political science (about one-fifth of the teaching corps) lost their positions. East Germany soon experienced a need for teachers of English rather than Russian. Rather than the 13 required in the West for a high school diploma, 12 remained the norm. Religious instruction was re-introduced, with some of the new federal states offering courses in ethics as an alternative to Lutheran or Catholic instruction.
Since unification in 1990, Germany's educational system has struggled with new challenges of unifying the radically different philosophies and structures of East and West, equalizing education for both sexes, and adapting a traditional educational system to the demands of a new technological age.
Constitutional & Legal Foundations
Germany's constitution, which dates from 1949, guarantees all citizens free choice of schooling or a vocational training position, as well as the free choice of occupation. Article Seven of the Basic Law establishes joint federal and state supervision of educational institutions. The federal government establishes compulsory education, the organization of the educational system, the recognition of educational certification, and chiefly holds jurisdiction over higher education and vocational training. West Germany's states established the Standing Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs in 1948. The five new East German states became members in 1990. This body, known by its German acronym, KMK (Kultusminister Konferenz ), facilitates greater standardization of schools and the mutual recognition of certificates awarded by vocational schools and comprehensive schools, and it lays down uniform requirements for the Abitur, the entrance examination for university admission. Particularly since the mid-1990s, the Standing Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs has moved toward greater standardization, in part to ensure comparable qualifications of pupils who move from one state to another. Previously, school-children's qualifications would have been judged on the basis of the type of school they attended; now there is more uniformity in these basic subjects, regardless of whether they have attended the Hauptschule or Realschule.
States retain the chief responsibility for education. They establish general curriculum guidelines, which may specify how many periods of instruction are required at each grade level in each subject. State ministries of education also create a list of approved textbooks and other curriculum materials. In some states, such as Bavaria, there may also be a centralized, statewide Abitur, or other achievement testing at designated grade levels.
Local communities have jurisdiction over other aspects of schools and schooling, which are often determined by party dominance. Within municipalities, town or city councils administer schools directly; there are no independent school boards as there are in the United States. Citizens' voices are heard chiefly in the parents' councils attached to individual schools and school classrooms.
Germany's Basic Law also mandates religious instruction in schools, although children may opt not to take it once they reach 14 years. Usually they choose between Lutheran and Catholic instruction, but recent years have witnessed a trend toward more ecumenical instruction, particularly in the East, where courses in ethics (rather than a particular denomination) were introduced in the early 1990s.
Germany's political parties champion significantly different educational policies. The Christian Democrats and their Bavarian allies, the Christian Socialist Union, held power from 1982 to 1998 under the leadership of Helmut Kohl. These parties represent Germany's Catholics and Lutherans, who each comprise about 35 percent of the population. They argue that early and clearly delineated separation into the three tracks (Hauptschule, Realschule, and Gymnasium ) is necessary to maintain educational quality. The Social Democratic Party (in power from 1966 to 1969 and again since 1998) champions broader access to education and, therefore, advocates adoption of the Gesamtschule (comprehensive high school model) and two-year orientation phase in fifth and sixth grades, rather than separating pupils into prevocational tracks after fourth grade. The Free Democrats, a small swing party, advocate a 12-year path to the Abitur, private colleges, independent funding sources for education, and the teaching of tolerance and conflict resolution in schools. Since unification, two other small parties have entered the scene. The former East German Socialist Unity Party, known in 2001 as the Party of Democratic Socialism, wants to abolish the three-part division of secondary education and the providing for childcare through all-day schooling. East Germany's small revolutionary parties, which arose just before the opening of the Berlin Wall, have allied themselves with Alliance 90/the Greens. Like the Party of Democratic Socialism, they champion a single curriculum for all children through tenth grade. Furthermore, they want schools to teach ecological awareness and a stronger respect for diversity. They advocate mainstreaming children with disabilities and eliminating Sonderschulen (special schools) and reducing the pressures of grading and evaluation in schools.
Educational System—Overview
School attendance is compulsory for children between the ages of 6 to 18. Full-time schooling is mandated for either 9 or 10 years (depending on state) and may be followed by part-time attendance at a vocational school, complemented by an apprenticeship. Parents may need to contribute to the cost of textbooks and other materials, depending on the income level of the family.
The school day runs from eight or nine o'clock in the morning until noon or one o'clock in the afternoon and is divided into 45 minute class periods. The school day grows longer as children progress through elementary school, but its length may vary with the day of the week. Children bring a snack to eat at recess, but most return home for a hot noonday meal, a schedule that makes it difficult for mothers to work a full day outside the home. Furthermore, a teacher's absence may result in children being sent home early, since the use of substitute teachers is quite rare. Teachers relinquish their free periods to fill in for absent colleagues, or children are simply sent home early. Few schools have a school nurse on the premises or even a cafeteria. School busses transport children in the countryside, but the majority ride public transportation, such as streetcars, municipal busses, or trains.
The school year averages 188 days and includes a week of vacation at Christmas, at Easter, and at Pentecost. Schools close for a six-week summer vacation; however, to reduce overcrowding on trains and the Autobahn as families depart for vacations, summer vacation dates are staggered throughout the 16 federal states. Saturday classes are still held two or three times a month in many states. The school week averages 26 to 35 hours, with children attending the Realschule or Gymnasium spending more hours per week in classes than do children at the Hauptschule (general secondary school).
Recently private schools have been growing in importance and, in 1996 and 1997, have educated approximately 600,000 pupils. Private schools are subject to supervision by state agencies to ensure that their facilities, teacher qualifications, and teaching objectives are comparable to those of public schools. They are expressly prohibited from segregating the children from richer families. Generally private schools are viewed not as elite; rather they are seen as innovative and less rigid in structure than public schools. Private institutions must be recognized by the state to administer examinations or to award certifications comparable to those granted by public schools. Those receiving state approval may draw as much as 98 percent of their budgets from public funding, since they help carry the burden of educating for the public good. In times of tight budgets, however, subsidies for private schools may be reduced and remain a topic of highly-charged political debate.
The largest number of private schools, around 1,100, are supported by the Catholic Church, and located chiefly in Bavaria, the Rhineland, or Baden-Württemberg. Most (43.6 percent) operate at the level of the Gymnasium. Private schools sponsored by the Protestant Church are fewer in number; because of church involvement in public schools and mandatory religious instruction, parents who want their children to be educated in the Christian tradition need not turn to private schools.
About one-tenth of all German private schools are special schools for the mentally or physically disabled. While the German Democratic Republic prohibited private schools and religious instruction, the churches did play a significant role in caring for people with disabilities and in special education. About 30 elementary schools following the model created by the Italian physician Maria Montessori also exist.
Because the German Democratic Republic did not permit private schools, there are fewer Montessori or Waldorf schools in the east than in the west. Approximately 13 percent of all children attending a private school are in Waldorf schools. Begun by Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) in Stuttgart in 1919, the Waldorf movement presented an alternative to Germany's socially conservative, stratified school system. Germany's 100 Waldorf schools emphasize the arts and crafts and center around child development. The school day encompasses activities that alternate cognitive and rational exercises, imitative and practical activities, and creative or artistic functions. Eurhythmy, an essential component of the Waldorf curriculum, integrates physical development through movement, dance, recitation, and music. Little importance is attached to testing and formal grading, and children are not separated according to ability or future career path. In these schools, a single teacher usually accompanies the class for several years, creating lasting relationships with pupils.
Preprimary & Primary Education
Traditionally, the Federal Republic of Germany has not regarded kindergarten as part of the educational system, but rather as a private or familial responsibility. Many kindergartens are run by churches, businesses, municipalities, or private associations. Most offer instruction only in the morning. Attendance is voluntary, and parents are expected to pay part or all of the costs. In 1996 about two-thirds of all three- to six-year-olds attended kindergarten. Nursery schools are administered by state ministries of youth and social affairs rather than ministries of education. About 70 percent depend on some private funding. Private nursery schools receive some state funding, as well as state supervision.
While the German Democratic Republic considered childcare and early childhood education a state responsibility, the Federal Republic did not offer comprehensive free kindergarten placements until 1996; even then the demand exceeded the supply of available spaces. The problem disappeared, at least temporarily, due chiefly to the sharp decline in the East German birthrate between 1990 and 1994. In contrast to both American and East German kindergartens, the West German model emphasizes creative play rather than formal instruction.
At the age of six, children begin Grundschule (elementary school), typically holding colorful paper cones filled with candy and treats to assuage the pangs of leaving home to go to school. Children who turn six by June 30 must begin schooling in the fall, provided they are found physically and developmentally ready. For the first two years, teachers do not grade schoolwork, but instead provide evaluations of their pupils' strengths and weaknesses. In the upper grades, a numerical system is used: one means very good, two good, three satisfactory, four passing, and five not passing. The school week may be as short as 20 hours in the early grades, but it gradually increases in length. Pupils study German and mathematics every day, supplemented by two class periods per week in science, religion, physical education, and art or music. Some children begin foreign language instruction as early as third or fourth grade, not surprising, given Germany's borders with nine countries. By fifth grade virtually all pupils are learning a foreign language, even those planning to enter training for blue-collar trades. Often a lead teacher remains with one class for several years, teaching all subjects except physical education and religion. This arrangement is intended to foster close cooperation and trust and to minimize discipline problems.
The Grundschule lasts for six years in Berlin and Brandenburg and for four years in the other federal states. Since 1973 schools in some western states have included a two-year Orientierungsstufe (orientation phase) at the end of fourth grade; parents and teachers meet and begin a process of consultation and advisement through which the child's future educational path is determined, with a final decision made at the end of sixth grade. The Social Democratic Party champions the orientation phase, which is opposed by the Christian Democrats, who favor a stricter separation of pupils destined for each of the three secondary education tracks. Thus this two-year adjustment and advisement period is offered in some federal states (such as Hesse, Lower Saxony, Hamburg, and Bremen) but not others, depending on political party dominance.
Some states require a certain grade point average, particularly in German and math, for entrance into the college preparatory secondary school, the Gymnasium ; others use admissions tests. However, all base their decisions on teachers' recommendations as well as parents' wishes. Because children at the age of 11 or 12 have little basis for choosing a future career, their parents often play a decisive role and, in fact, have a legal right to choose their child's school, even against the recommendations of teachers. It is not uncommon for them to push children into a higher level school than teachers have recommended, perhaps to avoid a general secondary school with a high population of immigrant children, whose presence is assumed to lower the overall quality of instruction.
The general effect of this early division of pupils into three separate tracks is a somewhat conservative reinforcement of the status quo, in which children enter professions fairly closely resembling those of their parents in terms of educational level and socio-economic status. In general, the German educational system is geared toward producing competent, useful members of society. It is not the venue for a soul-searching process of independent self-discovery.
The Standing Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK) passed resolutions in 1994 establishing other responsibilities concerning schools and teaching. Children are to learn critical attitudes toward television and other media, whose excessive use is blamed for their lack of attention in school and the loss of connection to reality. It must be pointed out that West Germany has had private television channels only since 1985, and the German Democratic Republic had none, although most residents could receive West German television. Thus, the distrust of television's impact on children and its deleterious effects in schooling are more widespread than in the United States. On the other hand, these resolutions' statements about over-indulgence in computer games may reveal deep-seated distrust of the computer's potential as an educational tool and may work against the wider use of computers in the classroom. Primary schools are also charged with engendering in children an attachment to their homeland, tolerance, and allegiance to the European Union ideal.
Secondary Education
Upon completion of the Grundschule, about one-fourth of pupils enter the Hauptschule (secondary general school), where they study German, mathematics, the natural and social sciences, and a foreign language. After unification, the new East German states did not introduce the Hauptschule, preferring instead to combine the general and intermediate secondary schools as an alternative to the Gymnasium. The Saarland adopted this combined secondary school model in 1997. Some of these schools combining the Hauptschule and Realschule also exist in Bremen, Hamburg, Hesse, Lower Saxony, and Schleswig-Holstein and are known by various names: Mittelschule, Regelschule, and Sekundarschule. These developments may call into question the future existence of the Hauptschule.
In most West German states, the Hauptschule encompasses grades five through nine, but seven through nine in states where the orientation phase remains part of elementary school. Some of the general secondary schools end with ninth grade, some with tenth. Instruction in a foreign language has been required since 1969, and most pupils choose English, although those in border regions may choose French. The upper grades include some computer science and practical work courses. Throughout the past twenty years, the proportion of pupils entering the Hauptschule has declined as parents push their children into the more prestigious and more academically oriented Realschule and Gymnasium. After three to five years of a common curriculum, including German, civics, religion, and physical education, pupils completing the Hauptschule earn a Zeugnis mittlere Reife (school leaving certificate), which entitles them to enter an apprenticeship. There is no final examination. Those who have earned outstanding marks in the Hauptschule and who complete tenth grade may receive the school-leaving certificate normally awarded at the end of the Realschule. The dropout rate from the Hauptschule is around 9 percent. Successful graduates begin vocational apprenticeships in one of the country's recognized trades, which total around 400. Each year about 600,000 young people enter an apprenticeship. While completion of the Hauptschule served for decades as the gateway to an apprenticeship, in 2001 an equal number of beginning apprentices have completed the Realschule and around 15 percent have the Abitur. This transition has made it increasingly difficult for young people with only the Hauptschule certificate to compete for a training position.
Germany's vocational training system has enjoyed a high reputation based on its success in producing skilled craftsmen through the "dual system" of education. Hands-on practical training is supplemented by theoretical instruction in the Berufsschule (vocational school), where young people learn theoretical material two or three days a week. These schools usually specialize in one or more areas: industry, commerce, agriculture, home economics, or offer a mixed curriculum. Nearly 60 percent of class time in the vocational school is devoted to training and the remaining 40 percent to specialized subjects. Some discrepancies arise within this dual system because apprenticeships are shaped and supervised by chambers of handicrafts and trades, while vocational schools are administered by state ministries of education. Because the entry level qualification for these schools is the completion of 10 years of schooling, classes have become quite heterogeneous, enrolling graduates of special schools for the disabled as well as those who have earned the Abitur.
Students at the vocational school spend the remaining weekdays and their vacations as trainees in the workplace. This system depends upon close cooperation between educational administrators and private industries, which furnish these paid apprenticeships. This system grew out of medieval tradition: during the Middle Ages apprentices traveled from town to town, learning from several masters. Those who passed the first level were recognized as Geselle (journeymen) competent to practice their trade. Those who continued through further examinations and produced a Meisterstück (masterpiece) were entitled to hire and train apprentices of their own. Today, the examination at the end of vocational school is administered by employers and trainers as well as teachers and includes an oral examination. Those who pass it are then qualified as Facharbeiter (skilled workers). Many are then hired by the companies that have trained and observed them for the past two or three years.
The shortage of available apprenticeships that Germany experienced during the mid-1990s was overcome, in part, due to the country's low birthrate and pressure for children to enter the intermediate secondary school or the Gymnasium. Most children from immigrant families follow the educational path through the Hauptschule, vocational school, and apprenticeship. Today, however, the availability of apprenticeships is limited by the country's economic slump. About one third of all private firms offer apprenticeships, and 90 percent of these are small firms employing 50 people or fewer. Overall, about half a million firms now offer such placements.
Because of the system's dependence on industry to furnish apprenticeships, those in certain trades are frequently oriented either toward girls or toward boys. Thus around 55 percent of girls in the Berufsschule choose apprenticeships in just 10 trades. The most popular are doctor's assistant, retail sales, hairdresser, and office worker. Around 40 percent of boys train to become auto mechanics, electricians, industrial mechanics, or business specialists in wholesale or foreign trade. In this way the vocational training system would appear to reinforce, rather than break down, gender stereotyping in vocational choices.
Apprenticeships last for two to three years, with shorter training periods for high achievers or those who have passed the Abitur. Apprentices receive a small allowance that increases yearly. What they are taught is determined by federal ministries, based on recommendations from craft associations and trade unions, which thus exercise tight control over the quality of preparation for those entering their field. Apprentices completing their training undergo examinations by chambers of industry or chambers of crafts or trades.
The challenge of providing training in high tech fields assumed critical proportions in the 1990s. In August 2000, for instance, Germany authorized 20,000 new immigrants to enter the country on five-year work permits in order to fill the country's shortfall of skilled computer technicians and software engineers, careers unforeseen in the days of the medieval guild system which gave rise to the dual system of apprenticeships and vocational training.
Around 40 percent of pupils finishing the four or six-year elementary school enter the Realschule, which encompasses grades 5 through 10 and is designed to educate mid-level administrators, functionaries, employees in service or commercial sectors, and managers. The number of these intermediate secondary schools increased greatly during the 1950s. They enroll the broadest spectrum of social classes, particularly in rural areas. The Social Democratic Party traditionally supports these schools, and such initiatives as their combining with general secondary schools. This is now the case in most East German states and the Saarland.
The Realschule is viewed as a middle class institution, providing a strong grounding in mathematics, modern languages, and technical fields. German and math lessons fill four periods each per week; a foreign language (usually English), geography, physical education, and fine arts for two periods each a week; and science and history for one period each. About one-third of these pupils also study a second foreign language such as French or Russian. Beginning in grades seven and eight, pupils may be separated into pre-vocational tracks. This track, emphasizing business and economics, enrolls about twothirds of the girls in these schools, while the mathematics, science, and technology track enrolls half the boys. The social science and humanities tracks attract about twice as many girls as boys. Graduates of the Realschule (those in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg must pass a standardized test) are entitled to attend a Berufsfachschule (full-time vocational school) or a Fachoberschule (vocationally oriented upper secondary school).
The founding of Berufsfachschulen is a newer trend. These full-time vocational schools enroll about 300,000 students nationwide. Admission to these institutions requires completion of either the Hauptschule or Realschule. The Berufsfachschule trains students for careers in nursing, bookkeeping, social work, forestry, commerce, the technical trades, tourism, social welfare, home economics, auto mechanics, and medical and dental technology. The course of study lasts from one to three years.
Overall, proper certification of one's education and vocational training is both more complex and far more widespread than in the United States. Job advertisements frequently specify the qualifications required, and both employers and prospective employees recognize a plethora of diplomas, certificates, and licenses, each stamped and validated by professional organizations. Those who lack such documentation stand a far poorer chance in the job market, where the American model for the "self-made man" receives little respect. Moreover, this somewhat rigid system means that workers contemplating a career change must invest considerable time and often money in earning new degrees and certificates.
Approximately one-fourth of Germany's pupils completing elementary school enter the Gymnasium. Most cities offer several models of Gymnasium specializing in modern languages, ancient languages (Greek and Latin), math and the natural sciences, the arts, or humanities. These schools may be further characterized by their religious affiliation, and, until the mid-1970s, many of those in the West were segregated by gender. A student at a modern language Gymnasium might have French and mathematics five periods a week; German, Latin, English, chemistry, history, and philosophy for three periods; and physical education for two periods a week. The traditional emphasis on Latin or Greek has declined considerably over the past decades. Today all Gymnasia include computer facilities and offer some information technology courses.
These schools are divided into a lower level, grades 5 through 10, and an upper level, grades 11 through 12 or 13, in which students concentrate on fewer subjects. Most require basic or core courses: German, math, civics, sciences, physical education, religion, the arts and music, English, and one other foreign language. Basic or core courses are taught three periods a week, while the courses students choose for their specialty, Leistungskurse, meet five periods a week and require higher standards of student mastery. These specialty courses may be chosen from the disciplines listed above, but may also include law, technology, statistics, psychology, sociology, education, astronomy, geology, or computer science, depending on the school. About 9 percent of those students who eventually pass the Abitur are enrolled at special economics Gymnasia for the three upper grades and concentrate on accounting, law, economics, and information technology. There are other specialized Gymnasia for music and the arts. In 1977 North Rhine-Westphalia introduced the Kolleg, a school providing vocational education and preparation for the Abitur and university admission. Instruction integrates vocational and general subjects. Graduates can also enter the vocationally oriented upper secondary school, sometimes called a polytechnic school Fachoberschule.
The increased emphasis on specialized courses in grades 11 through 12 or 13 necessitates choices pointing towards a future career. Some critics believe it weakens the Gymnasium 's historical role in providing a liberal arts foundation for university study. Thus the balance between core and specialty courses and how they are weighted in the Abitur was debated and revised during the 1990s. These revisions specify that all pupils must study German, mathematics, and a foreign language in depth throughout their Gymnasium years, regardless of their choice of specialization. During the 1990s, the nationwide conference of university rectors criticized the structure of the Abitur, insisting that science and history, including contemporary history, should be compulsory as well.
Budget tightening in recent years has resulted in Gymnasium classes of as much as 30 students. Because teachers enjoy tenure and are assigned to one school, it is difficult to adjust the teaching staff to meet changing demand for more or fewer teachers in a given subject.
High school students are assigned a few hours of homework each afternoon, but testing is fairly infrequent, perhaps two tests per semester in specialty subjects, with just one or none in core subjects. Report cards are issued twice a year, and oral participation weighs heavily in student grades.
At the end of 13 years (12 in the Saarland and most of the new federal states) students at the Gymnasium sit for examinations (the Abitur ) in at least three specialized subjects. Approximately one-fourth of the country's secondary school graduates passes the Abitur each year. A half-day of essay questions is followed by a half-hour oral examination. Some states such as Bavaria have a centralized Abitur, while other states administer different tests in each school. The Bavarian Abitur, requiring examination in four subjects instead of three, is considered the most difficult. About one-fifth of a given year's age group passes the Bavarian Abitur, slightly below the national average of 27 percent. That proportion rises as high as 30 to 40 percent in some states, and this leads Bavaria to threaten that it will institute a separate entrance examination for students from other states seeking admission to one of its universities.
Regardless of such disputes, considerable standardization and quality control of the Abitur already exist. The Conference of Ministers of Education of the federal states establishes standards for 33 subjects at both the basic level of advanced courses and the advanced level of specialty courses. State ministries of education exchange questions used in written exams, share test results, and disclose their criteria for evaluation. Despite this approach to standardization, there is enough variation in the test's difficulty that students who fail it in one state or city may be able to pass it elsewhere. Questions are submitted by teachers in the schools, so there is some risk that they "teach to the test," although they cannot be certain that the questions they have submitted will be selected. Tests are administered by teachers to their own students, observed by another teacher of the same subject, a recorder, and a chairperson. Students who pass these examinations are awarded the Abitur or Zeugnis der allgemeinen Hochschulreife. Those who fail may try once more. Because this examination permits admission to any German university, its approach is regarded with considerable trepidation.
In the 1990s many German Abiturienten (students who had passed the examination) equipped themselves with formal training in a trade as well. About 15 percent of apprentices now have achieved the Abitur. For the most part they seek training in fields such as banking, insurance, communications, and management. Their presence makes it more difficult for candidates who have only the general school-leaving certificate to find apprenticeships.
The chief function of the Abitur is to serve as a credential opening the door to university study. Because of overcrowding in desirable specializations such as medicine, veterinary and dental medicine, biology, and chemistry, most universities introduced numerus clauses (caps or quotas) in these disciplines in the 1970s. As a result, graduates of the Gymnasium may nonetheless need to wait as much as five years to enter a university. Some pursue traineeships, travel to improve their language skills, work as au pairs, or exist as trades people while they await admission. Males may fulfill their 12 months of military service obligation or 15 months of alternative service.
The Gesamtschule, emerged as an alternative to Germany's multi-track school system in 1969. Today these schools are found chiefly in Brandenburg, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, Bremen, Hamburg, and Berlin, educating about 13 percent of the country's schoolchildren. Instead of the Gesamtschule, some East German states established a middle school (known as a Sekundarschule, Mittelschule, or Regelschule ) combining features of the Hauptschule and Realschule through grades five and six. Most comprehensive schools provide full day instruction, lasting from eight o'clock in the morning until around three o'clock in the afternoon.
The West German Gesamtschule of grades 5 or 7 through 10 may house a Hauptschule, Realschule, and Gymnasium under one roof so that pupils can transfer easily from one type of school to another, or it may be integrated so that all pupils follow the same curriculum. The first two years, grades five and six, called the Förderstufe, offer maximum flexibility in changing tracks or even transferring to an outside school. From seventh grade upward several levels of difficulty are offered in most subjects, enabling pupils to be grouped by ability. Many comprehensive schools end after tenth grade, and graduates receive certification equivalent to completion of a Hauptschule or Realschule. They may then continue to a Gymnasium. Other comprehensive schools extend through grade 13 and administer the Abitur in-house. These schools offer more electives than the traditional schools, and the number of electives increases in the higher grades. Comprehensive schools are intended to be more democratic in governance, more flexible, and employ a more pupil-centered approach to teaching. Although the Gesamtschule has been the focus of much educational research, it is still considered experimental and controversial and are opposed by the Christian Democrats and the Bavarian Christian Socialist Union. Therefore, these schools are seldom found in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg.
Several reports published in the 1990s investigated whether comprehensive schools had achieved their purpose in their first quarter-century of existence. These studies reveal that the comprehensive schools have gradually become alternatives to the general secondary school or Hauptschule, with the more able pupils being sent to the Realschule or Gymnasium. Deprived of the upper strata of student achievement, the Gesamtschule has sometimes fallen below initial academic expectations. Furthermore, because these schools draw enrollment from three levels (Hauptschule, Realschule, and Gymnasium ), they are often regional, rather than local. They are also considerably larger than other German schools, enrolling as many as 1,000 to 2,000 pupils. Some blame these factors and larger classes for student feelings of anonymity and alienation. And, because of their full day schedule and the broad spectrum of course offerings, these schools may be more expensive to operate than other types.
There are other differences between these three types of schools besides the curriculum they offer. Parents of children at the Gymnasium or Realschule usually set high expectations for their children's success, monitor their progress, participate in parents' councils, and stay in contact with teachers, all factors which contribute to their children's success. On the other hand, children at the Hauptschule may come from homes where there is less support for education, lower expectations, and less assistance with homework. These children are also more likely to bring discipline problems into the classroom, and a very few may need to transfer to a special school. Teachers at this level are apt to need stronger skills in pedagogy and interpersonal relations, while teachers at the Gymnasium are more likely to be successful simply with presenting the material.
Students in elementary or secondary schools who receive failing grades are likely to be held back, a decision reached in a conference of teachers. According to most reports, being held back is not stigmatized; rather, it is viewed as a decision made in the best interest of the child. Pupils who fail two subjects also have the option of transferring to a lower level school, for example from the Realschule to the Hauptschule. In that school, only one year may be repeated; a pupil who is still failing can leave school after the age of 16 with a school-leaving certificate, which is not equal to the normal qualification. About 10 percent of pupils per year take this step; thus the dropout rate from Germany's schools remains very low. A contributing factor may be the difficulty of finding work as an unskilled labor in an economy which places a high value on occupational training and credentials.
Transfer from the Gymnasium down into the Realschule is not uncommon and leaves children the possibility of earning the Abitur later. Pupils may also transfer into the comprehensive school, if there is a Gesamtschule in the area, or to a vocational high school (Gymnasium ).
Nearly 4 percent of the country's school population attends Sonderschulen (Germany's special schools) for the physically or mentally handicapped. These institutions, developed out of church-sponsored facilities, are one area where churches continued to play a significant role even in the avowedly atheistic German Democratic Republic. The principle of separate schools was established after World War II, but has been repeatedly questioned. Some expected that children with special needs could be integrated into comprehensive schools. The largest groups of pupils in special schools are those with developmental delays or learning disabilities. At the elementary level, some pupils, usually those with dyslexia or mild learning disabilities, are being mainstreamed. During the first four years of schooling, pupils with disabilities may be sent to these special schools, a decision reached by the local superintendent, teachers, and parents. Almost one fifth of these special schools are private, chiefly those for pupils with hearing or vision impairments. In a few cases, children with disabilities may be schooled in a regular classroom of the Hauptschule, but their chances of finding an apprenticeship are slim; Germany has no real anti-discrimination policies comparable to the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Proponents of Germany's separate Sonderschulen contend that this system offers two advantages: it provides specialized education efficiently to those with special needs, and it spares other schools the expense of special equipment (wheelchair ramps, elevators) to accommodate such pupils; some Sonderschulen are residential institutions. The disadvantages are that separation of these children may not prepare them adequately for integration into the workplace. Furthermore, other children may not learn tolerance or a willingness to accommodate those with special needs. The trend is moving toward increased mainstreaming of physically or mentally challenged pupils.
Significant changes in Germany's three-part secondary school system began in the 1980s. Larger numbers of German children who might otherwise have entered the Hauptschule chose the Realschule instead, motivated in part by the belief that the quality of instruction in the Hauptschule had been compromised by the influx of immigrant children. While the majority of citizens favor the current system of separating pupils after the fourth grade into three separate institutions, many parents aim higher than the school level where their children are placed; for example 52 percent would prefer that their offspring attend the Gymnasium, while only about half that number actually do so.
Efforts toward less stratified, more egalitarian structures, such as the orientation phase following fourth grade and the comprehensive secondary school, have gained ground where the Social Democratic Party is strongest, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, and the three city-states. However, the Christian Democrats and their affiliates, the Christian Socialist Union, form a bulwark preserving the more conservative, traditional three-part division of secondary education in areas where they dominate the political scene, such as Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg.
Germany's public school system presents several contrasts to the American model. Student activities play a far smaller role than is the case in American high schools, although German schools may create their own newspapers. Team sports seldom form part of the school experience; rather children join soccer or swimming clubs, which are sponsored by municipalities or private organizations. Music lessons and school bands are also rare in German schools. Driver education is given through Fahrschulen (private schools) where tuition is expensive, and the minimum age for obtaining a driver's license is eighteen. Thus, in contrast to the American pattern, it is rare for high school students to drive to school or to hold part-time jobs at the end of the school day.
German schools offer few special programs for the gifted and talented. It is assumed that these pupils will ascend to the upper tracks within the Gymnasium, and this arrangement appears satisfactory, given the system's separation of pupils into tracks based on intellectual ability.
Relatively little career counseling occurs in German schools. For the most part, decisions about which secondary school to enter also encompass decisions about a future occupation. The Bundesanstalt für Arbeit (Federal Agency for Work) and its information centers disseminate information about various careers.
At all levels, Germany's educational institutions have been struggling to keep pace with technological innovations. At the turn of the twenty-first century, only about one third of the country's schools had Internet access. In May 2000 Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder announced a new four-year initiative to spend 750 million marks to equip public schools and libraries with Internet connections, to develop educational software, and to expand opportunities to study information technology at colleges and universities over the next five years. In 1999, only 20,000 students began their studies in computer science; at the technical universities of Berlin and Munich about half the applicants had to be turned away due to a lack of financing for such programs. Some universities, such as Hannover and the Free University in Berlin, have responded by introducing newer, shorter information technology programs. In addition, 100 Fachhochschulen offered 100 openings each in one-year postgraduate training programs in information technology.
Evidence of the country's serious shortage of computer experts can be seen in Schroeder's initiative to offer 20,000 non-European Union computer specialists a green card entitling them to work in Germany for a five-year period, accompanied by their families. A few months after this initiative was announced in 2000, Germany had received far fewer than the expected number of applications, most from India, Pakistan, Algeria, and Bulgaria. After much debate, German authorities agreed that applicants must either hold an advanced degree or prove a minimum yearly income of 100,000 DM (about US$50,000). German employers found themselves on the horns of a dilemma: while their culture respects and recognizes academic qualifications above any comparable measures of worth, the sudden demand for computer experts has forced them to become more flexible.
Higher Education
Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835) founded the Berlin University in 1810. He insisted that universities should promote both research and teaching and advocated academic freedom, liberating professors from the demand that they submit their lectures for church or state approval and not deviate from the written text. Humboldt insisted that universities must be autonomous, free of political or religious interference, a goal that was not realized for many more decades. Humboldt also introduced less formal instructional settings, seminars, and laboratory sessions.
At the end of World War II, West Germany contained 16 universities and 14 technical colleges. Fachhochschulen, offering higher professional training in engineering and scientific fields, appeared in West Germany in the late 1960s. They offer instruction in fields such as business administration, engineering, agriculture, social work, or design. The period of study is usually shorter than at a university and culminates in the award of a Diplom.
In East Germany, the research function was transferred from universities to institutes and academies, such as the prestigious Academy of Sciences in Berlin. Both research and academic freedom came under the scrutiny of the Socialist Unity Party in the German Democratic Republic. Many administrators and senior faculty belonged to the Party, and Free German Youth groups existed on all campuses, exercising some control over student access and activities. At the time of unification, East Germany counted 54 institutions of higher education, among them 8 universities and 5 technical colleges. While their physical facilities were often outdated, and laboratory and computer equipment inadequate, these institutions enjoyed a favorable faculty-to-student ratio, with a stronger emphasis on teaching and learning than on research. Since unification, many institutions have been amalgamated and faculties combined or reduced in the East. New universities have been founded at Erfurt, Potsdam, and Frankfurt an der Oder, and new technical colleges at Cottbus and Chemnitz. Over a three-year period, departments of history, social studies, law, and Marxism-Leninism were disbanded and professors' qualifications and personal integrity were examined. New faculty positions were established in the humanities, legal studies, economics, business, and education.
New universities were founded in West Germany throughout the 1970s and 1980s when the population of university students doubled (from a half-million to around 1 million). However, facilities were not expanded to meet the demand. This was because demographers had predicted lower enrollments in the 1980s based on the low birthrates following the advent of oral contraceptives in the early 1960s. Despite these predictions, large numbers of students sought admission to higher education, especially in fields such as computer science, engineering, and business. Expectations that students would complete their studies more expeditiously and leave universities sooner also failed to materialize. In 2000 around one-third of united Germany's young people chose to study at a university or specialized college, and enrollment has remained around 1.8 million. The largest universities are Munich, followed by Berlin's Free University, and the universities in Cologne, Münster, Hamburg, and Frankfurt am Main. The 1980s and 1990s witnessed steady increases in the proportion of students from working class families (now around 15 percent), the proportion of students from immigrant families, and the proportion of women (40 percent in the West and 46 percent in the East) pursuing higher education.
German universities present many contrasts to the American university system. First, admissions to most fields of study are not competitive; high school graduates with the Abitur are assured of admission. However, since a period of overcrowding in the 1970s, admissions to fields such as medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, biology, management, economics, law, psychology, pharmacy, and nutrition have been restricted. Nearly half of all university admissions are decided on the basis of Abitur grades and testing, 10 percent solely on test results, and the remainder on the basis of an interview and other factors such as how long the applicant has been waiting for admission. Decisions for all public universities are made by a central admissions board in Dortmund. The average age for students entering higher education is 22; some have delayed this step because of the difficulty of obtaining a place in high demand fields such as the medical sciences. In 2001 about 25 percent of the students entering higher education have completed vocational training as well as the Abitur. Some students have pursued practical training or worked to earn money to finance their education. Because the average length of university study is 7 years, with slightly shorter times for technical colleges, students are 28 or 29 by the time they graduate and are ready to begin their careers. Recently concern has arisen that this places them at a competitive disadvantage among their peers in the European Union.
Tuition is free, but students pay for health insurance and activity fees each semester. Those who need financial assistance to meet living costs receive monthly subsidies known as BAFöG, an acronym for Bundesausbildungsförderungsgesetz (federal law to promote education). About a quarter of all students in the West and half of those in the East receive this financial assistance. Originally a grant, these subsidies were converted in 1983 to interest-free loans, usually awarded for a maximum of four years. A more recent decision to charge interest on BAFöG loans aroused controversy over the issue of fair access to higher education for all qualified students. About 60 percent of German university students finance their studies through part-time work; however, since Germany values special training and skilled trades, opportunities for entry into low-skilled occupations are limited.
Germany's university faculties have historically been considered attractive and prestigious; indeed those entitled to the honorific "professor" outrank even medical doctors in prestige. At the top of faculty rank are chaired professors; followed by Privatdozente, who do not have tenure; temporary and guest faculty; instructors whose role is limited to teaching, Lehrbeauftragte ; and technical and teaching assistants, wissenschaftliche Hilfskräfte. Faculty at technical colleges are expected to bring appropriate practical experience as well as advanced degrees to their teaching posts. In addition to advanced degrees and teaching expertise, those wishing to ascend to a full university professorship must complete a step known as Habilitation, research and publication in their field analogous to a second doctoral dissertation, and orally presented to a committee of superiors for discussion and approval. Only after successful completion of this step (which may take as long as ten years) are faculty recommended for permanent appointment to the highest rank.
In 1999 the Conference of University Rectors (Hochschulrektorenkonferenz ) recommended some changes in the training of new university faculty, maintaining that students should be able to obtain a doctoral degree by 27 or 28 years of age. Qualification for a tenure-track position should not require more than an additional 10 years—still very long by U.S. standards. The present system requires closely supervised research under the auspices of a senior faculty mentor, a procedure which discourages study abroad and may be restrictive, subjective, or unduly dependent on personal interactions. Furthermore, the emphasis on research does nothing to promote effective teaching. Reliance on the support of senior faculty, who are overwhelmingly male, makes it difficult for women to attain tenured university rank. Only about 5 percent of fully tenured university professors are women.
Germany had no private universities until the late twentieth century. In 2001 there are about 65, many church-related, whose total enrollment is about 30,000 students. Even in 2001, there are no noteworthy general-purpose private universities and no significant differences in status or quality among the country's approximately 90 public universities. In 1995 united Germany also counted 17 theological seminaries, 136 polytechnic colleges, and 31 colleges (Fachhochschulen ) for administrative services. There are almost 50 academies of Music and Art (Kunsthochschulen, Musikhochschulen ) but only 6 colleges of education (Pädagogische Hochschulen ), since most have been combined with universities. In the 1960s and 1970s, technical universities and colleges sprang up, for example in Berlin, Munich, Augsburg, Bochum, and Trier. The distance-learning university at Hagen, founded in 1975, enrolls about 50,000 students, most of them part-time, in programs in economics, mathematics, electrical engineering, computer science, and other fields. The last 10 years have witnessed the creation of new bi-national universities, beginning with a joint German-Polish university (Viadrina) in Frankfurt an der Oder. France and Germany founded a new bi-national university in Saarbrücken in 2000, where instruction takes place in both languages; the study of artificial intelligence is a particular emphasis there. Beginning in 2001-2002 a Neisse university founded by the university of Wroclaw in Poland, the university of Liberec in the Czech Republic, and the university of Zittau/Görlitz in Germany will offer bachelors' degrees in information and communication management.
The curriculum at German universities also presents several contrasts to the American model. Germans consider that students at the Gymnasium have acquired a broad-based grounding in the liberal arts; thus universities have no core curriculum or general education requirement. Germans do not clearly distinguish graduate and undergraduate education. The period known as Grundstudium (basic studies) usually lasts for two years, ending with an examination, the Zwischenprüfung, or, in technical fields, the Diplomvorprüfung. A period of specialized, in-depth study follows, lasting two or more years longer. An examination is generally required at the end, either for civil service employment, the Staatsexamen, or a Diplomprüfung in scientific, technical, or engineering fields, or a master's level examination. The Magister (Master's degree) may require a thesis, as does the doctorate. There is no formal process for student advisement, nor for selecting an academic major comprised of a recommended curriculum. Instead, most students prepare for examinations by taking a variety of courses and seeking guidance from more experienced students or faculty. About one-fifth change their major during their course of study and as many as one-third drop out. A university degree does not guarantee employment in one's chosen fields: as many as a third of all graduates in languages, culture, social studies, and economics and one-tenth of those in medicine and veterinary medicine failed to find employment in keeping with their qualifications.
Courses of instruction at the university may be divided into various levels. Beginners sit in Vorlesungen (large lecture sections) and listen to a professor lecture from his notes or book. Tutorial sessions led by the professor's assistants may be offered in addition. Seminars are designated by their level of specificity and difficulty: Proseminar, Mittelseminar, and Hauptseminar. Students who wish to document their attendance and performance in these courses must make individual arrangements with the professor; generally, research papers and oral reports are required in the seminar courses. Close mentoring relationships between faculty and students are quite rare. Increasing student-faculty ratios make it even more difficult to develop such relationships.
As was the case at the level of high school vocational training, this educational model has proven conservative and somewhat inflexible. Thus new technological fields have found a place in new technical universities and colleges, rather than in the traditional universities. Although these opened their doors to women with the advent of the Weimar Republic, women are under-represented as both students and faculty in the sciences, law, and theology.
Student life at the university also presents several contrasts to the American system. The largest university, in Munich, has about 60,000 students, and many others are nearly as large, although the lack of a centralized campus masks their true size. The winter semester begins in October and extends through mid-February, while the summer semester lasts from mid-April to mid-July. Competitive sports are non-existent. Extra-curricular activities consist of a few groups organized, for example, on the basis of religion. Bruderschaften (fraternities) cultivate a rich tradition, but there are no sororities. The university campus may be spread throughout a city, with buildings housing newer faculties scattered on its outskirts. Only about 10 percent of a university's students in the West and 55 percent in the East are housed in dormitories, which usually reserve some space for foreign students. About one-fifth of university students and one-third of those at technical colleges live with their parents. Many students rent rooms or join others in apartments. The Mensa (student cafeteria) serves inexpensive meals and provides meeting space for students. Many university libraries have closed stacks, and students rely on their own housing arrangements for study space.
During the late 1990s, some West German students moved east to take advantage of East Germany's less crowded classrooms and lower cost of living. Some differences between East and West German students persist a decade after unification. Easterners are more apt to plan an academic program with a clear career goal in mind. They become financially independent earlier and finish their studies on average one year earlier than West German students.
Change is afoot in Germany's universities, after years of low budgets and high enrollments. In autumn 1997 university students began a series of demonstrations and strikes to protest lack of funding for higher education. While German colleges and universities can accommodate around 1 million students, there are currently about 1.8 million crowding into lecture halls and seminar rooms. From the late 1970s to the late 1990s, the number of students rose 70 percent, but the numbers of college and university faculty increased only 5 percent. Basic federal financial aid (BAFöG) has increased only slightly. In 1997 a proposal made by the University Rector's Conference to charge tuition sparked the largest student protests since 1968 and was ultimately rejected. While these protests attracted media attention and loosened purse strings in a few federal states, they failed to achieve any far-reaching reform of higher education. Other reforms proposed in 1997 would have replaced some aspects of faculty governance with professional administrators, introduced student evaluations of their courses, and prescribed programs of study leading to bachelor's and master's degrees.
On the other hand, different kinds of changes are occurring on the university scene. Over a dozen universities, including Leipzig, Dresden, Reutlingen, Stuttgart, Kaiserslautern, Stralsund, and Duisburg, now offer some instruction in English, particularly in technical fields such as engineering, communications, water resource management, information technology, electronics, and business administration. Some institutions have begun to design curricula that more closely resemble the American model, offering a bachelor's degree after six semesters or a master's degree after nine. Students who have earned a bachelor's degree in their homeland may be able to enter a master's level program directly. Some colleges and universities are considering introducing the credit point system used in the United States. The goal of these innovations is to attract more foreign students and to better prepare German students for internationally recognized degrees. Many of these programs offer study abroad as an integral part of the curriculum. Courses in English are often taught by visiting faculty from the United States, Britain, Asia, or India. A secondary purpose of such programs is to abbreviate the traditional seven years most university students spend passing their examinations and earning a license or diploma. At Fachhochschulen, the average is slightly more than five years. Thus far, attempts to shorten these periods of study have proven fruitless. Success could depend on closer monitoring of student progress and better advisement, an area where German universities have traditionally done relatively little.
Administration, Finance, & Educational Research
In general, education is administered and financed by Germany's 16 federal states, with the national government assuming responsibility for the standardization of requirements for the Abitur, for teacher training, and for vocational education, as well as for financial support of students in higher education.
The Federal Institute for Vocational Education (Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung ), comprised of representatives of state and federal governments, unions, and employers, created educational guidelines for apprenticeships and is responsible for certification. At the local level, chambers of commerce maintain vocational education committees; firms which provide apprenticeships also contribute to their administration and have input.
The Standing Conference of Ministers of Education and Culture sets standards for mutual recognition of teaching certificates, vocational training, the Abitur, and other certificates awarded at the completion of secondary education. In 1969 the West German constitution was amended to establish joint federal and state responsibility for higher education. Since the 1980s there has also existed a central office in Dortmund for awarding students admission to a university.
Universities and technical colleges are generally administered by a rector or president, and supported by deans and faculty hierarchies. Governance is shared with an assembly or senate comprised of university faculty. Once restricted to professors holding a university chair, these groups now usually include representatives from other faculty ranks.
Individual schools are under the supervision of a director appointed by the local district. The director, who continues to teach within the school, is responsible for scheduling, the evaluation of teachers, the coordination of grading, and representing the school to the public. A school council comprised of teachers, parents, and pupils discusses school issues such as rules, schedules, space usage, events, textbooks, and field trips. There are also separate teacher and parent councils. Party differences are evident here too: the Christian Democrats oppose the school council as a non-professional interference in educational matters.
Elementary and secondary schools receive around 80 percent of their financing from each of the federal states, with the remainder coming from individual communities; therefore, school quality does not vary significantly between rich and poor towns and cities. Schools may also receive funds or donated equipment from local businesses. Funds are distributed quite evenly among each of the levels of secondary school; the general secondary school does not usually lag behind the Gymnasium in the quality of school buildings or adequacy of resources.
With respect to higher education, the federal government provides 65 percent of financial aid to students (BAFöG) and contributes to funding for college and university construction, staffing, and special promotions, such as increasing the numbers of women faculty. However, the states pay 92 percent of higher education costs. About three-fourths of the funding for research comes from the federal government. Adult education funding is shared about equally by the federal, state, and local governments. In 1996 public spending for schools and higher education totaled approximately 159.2 billion DM or about eighty billion U.S. dollars.
The Federal Ministry of Education, Science, Research, and Technology funds educational research (overseen by a joint federal and state council) into topics such as the integration of technology in schools, the role of ecology in the curriculum, and the development of girls and women. The Wissenschaftsrat (science council) located in Cologne was established in 1958 to coordinate science and research at the federal and state levels. It makes recommendations on university staffing, finances, and courses of study and played a key role in the reform of East German universities after unification. At that time it had 39 members, and, with additional representatives from East Germany, it now has 54. Members of this highly prestigious council are appointed by the federal president upon recommendation by the Max Planck Society, the University Rectors Conference, and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. During its first 40 years, only 6 of its members have been women.
The University of Bochum includes a prominent Research Center for Comparative Educational Studies and, since the early 1990s, the University of Marburg has had a center for studies on European developments in education. The Max Planck Institute of Educational Research, established in Berlin in 1963, has worked since unification to analyze East German social networks, in addition to its more general research interests such as psychology and human development, educational development, schools, and teaching. The oldest institution researching international non-university education is the German Institute of International Educational Research at Frankfurt. This organization also assumed responsibility for the former East German Central Educational Library in Berlin, an institution dating back to 1875, now known as the Library for Research into the History of Education. A variety of both federal and state institutes also conduct research in such areas as curriculum development, the effectiveness of comprehensive schools, cooperation between schools, and teaching and learning. The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Association), the Volkswagen Foundation, and churches also support specific projects in the area of educational research. Recommendations from the late 1990s would strengthen links between the traditionally independent Max Planck Institute and universities and urge that organization to focus its research efforts on the latest developments in science. The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft has a somewhat restrictive peer review process to award grant funding and has been urged to open its review panels to younger researchers and to include more women. Germany ranks seventh among industrialized nations in the proportion of gross domestic product spent on research and development. In Germany as everywhere else, recent years have seen tighter budgets and greater reluctance to fund schools fully. The country taxes its wealthiest citizens at about half their income, in part to defray the high costs of unification.
Nonformal Education
Adults may expand their formal schooling for personal reasons or to develop new job skills. There are more than 1,000 Volkshochschulen (adult education centers) in Germany, offering courses in languages, technology, health areas, and arts and crafts. Around 7 million residents take advantage of such offerings each year.
The so-called second path (zweiter Bildungsweg ) is open to adults over the age of 19 who completed tenth grade and have professional training or a three-year work record. These adults, as well as full-time homemakers, can attend evening courses to earn school completion certificates such as the Abitur and the certificate normally awarded upon completion of the Realschule. Full-time study for adults is offered in the Kolleg, which fills 32 hours a week and can last for three to four years. Participants in these programs can receive BAFöG financial support. Both full-time and part-time instructors teach adult education courses, many of them in the evening. Workers who have been unemployed for a long time may receive subsidies to cover part or most of the cost of such re-training initiatives. The Bundeanstalt für Arbeit (Federal Agency for Work) sponsors a retraining program for workers suffering from long-term unemployment. Labor unions, churches, and private businesses also maintain continuing education facilities and programs. A half-dozen universities offer non-degree programs for senior citizens.
While distance learning was widespread in the German Democratic Republic, it did not appear in West Germany until 1975 with the founding of the university at Hagen in North Rhine-Westphalia. Now the university has more than 50,000 students, with more than 50 percent of them part-time; the largest number study economics and education. It operates 60 regional study centers throughout Germany.
Teaching Profession
In 1990 the nationwide Conference of State Ministers of Education established new standards for teacher education. Those planning to teach in elementary and general secondary schools must study for at three or four years - depending on their state - at the university; those destined for the Realschule, Gymnasium, vocational schools, or special schools study for five years. Teachers at the elementary level and those in the secondary general school (Hauptschule ) may study at one of the country's Colleges of Education (Pädagogische Hochschulen ). In recent years the trend has been to incorporate these institutions into universities, except for Baden-Württemberg, Schleswig-Holstein, and Saxony-Anhalt, where they remain separate. Teachers at the elementary and general secondary schools are required to specialize in German, mathematics, and an additional subject. Those planning to teach in the Realschule, Gymnasium, or special schools usually specialize in at least two subjects, with relatively less training in pedagogy than is required in the United States. All prospective teachers take a qualifying examination after university study, followed by two years of supervised practice teaching (the Referendariat ), and then a second state examination. Teachers in vocational schools must have completed an apprenticeship in addition to their academic training. Requirements for teacher education differ among the 16 federal states in length of study, number of specialty subjects, periods of practical experience, and the type of school where one wishes to teach. The result is an inflexible system in which a person prepared to teach at a comprehensive school in Hesse would not be qualified to teach at a Gymnasium in Bavaria.
After a three-year probationary period, during which they are further supervised and evaluated, teachers apply to the regional district office for employment. Since 1872 public school teachers in the West have enjoyed lifetime tenure as Beamtenstatus (civil servants), a privilege opposed by the Social Democrats. After unification, veteran East German teachers were required to re-apply for their positions and undergo two years of observation and evaluation before receiving the status of Angestellte (salaried employees). Since citizens of other countries belonging to the European Union can also work in Germany, they may become salaried employees, but not civil servants, a rank open only to German citizens. Teachers in the Gymnasium become eligible for promotion to Studienrat (study advisor) and Oberstudienrat (head study advisor) and then to assistant principal and principal. An increase in salary accompanies promotion. Most teachers earn between $35,000 and $50,000 per year; however, those in the East still earn around 15 percent less than teachers in the West, although their teaching loads may be heavier and class sizes larger due to school consolidations. Principals continue to teach and come from the ranks of experienced teachers, rather than receiving specialized training. Their salaries are not significantly higher than those of teachers. They observe and evaluate teachers, schedule classes, and organize meetings with parents' councils, but seldom intervene to enforce classroom discipline. Detention or suspension from school are not common disciplinary measures. Few schools employ guidance counselors in the American model; rather, teachers who have received extra training may deal with drug problems or personal issues. Relatively little academic or career counseling occurs in German schools.
Most teachers conduct around 25 classes a week, averaging 45 minutes apiece. At the upper levels, two class periods may be combined for laboratory sessions. Those who supervise student teachers or head departments teach a reduced load, as do those over 55. Teachers retire at 65, or earlier, if they have taught 35 years (5 years of university study may be counted toward that period of service). The largest teachers' union, the Gewerkschaft Erziehung und Wissenschaft, enrolls about 65 percent of teachers, followed by smaller unions. Teachers' unions campaign for equal pay for East Germans, reduced teaching loads, and better pay. Because of their civil servant status, teachers may not strike.
Germany's teacher training system has come under scrutiny because of its generally conservative nature. Particularly at the level of the Realschule and Gymnasium, teachers concentrate on subject matter, the theory being that good scholars will be able to transmit their knowledge effectively. However, as these schools have lost their selectivity and experienced increased enrollments from more diverse and less academically prepared pupils, teachers have sometimes found themselves over-whelmed. Those who have achieved civil servant status may be evaluated every four to six years, but are not obliged to participate in further in-service training, nor does it raise their salaries unless they qualify for teaching at a higher level. It is difficult to remove or dismiss a poor teacher. Teacher training has been slow to respond to changes in the needs of teachers to be familiar with new instructional media and computer technology. In-service training offers teachers many opportunities to up-date their qualifications in methods and instructional media. These retraining courses usually take place during the school day and teachers are excused to participate. Because of the absence of substitutes, however, their participation places hardships on their co-workers. Summer courses for teachers are less common than in the United States.
Because curriculum and textbooks must receive state approval, there is less incentive or opportunity for innovative teaching than in many U.S. schools. It may be difficult to adapt a given text to the abilities of a particular class. And given the secure status of teachers' employment, not all can be motivated to cooperate with their colleagues in creating change. Those who have been promoted to the highest rank have little incentive to further their education or to adopt innovative techniques. Most teachers do not have a "homeroom," but rely on space in a teachers' lounge to prepare classes and do paperwork. Because few schools have cafeterias, most teachers also leave the building when the school day ends around one o'clock, and find little time to compare notes, talk shop, or cooperate with their peers.
Gender imbalance remains in the country's teaching faculties. About three-fourths of all elementary teachers are women. As the educational level rises, the number of males in the classroom increases also. Male kindergarten teachers are virtually unknown, but men and women teach in about equal proportions at the Gymnasium. As is true worldwide, women tend to be concentrated in the humanities and social sciences. However, the East German states boast more women teachers of math and science than the West, evidence that the Marxist-socialist education system did achieve some success in overturning gender stereotypes. Unemployment among teachers affects more women than men.
Because of demographics and tight budgets, relatively few new teachers entered the profession in the 1990s. A sharp decline in the birthrate between 1990 and 1994 caused an oversupply of teachers at the elementary level, and this effect is slowly making its way upward through the age cohorts, so that tenured positions have become increasingly difficult to obtain. In the new federal states, school enrollments are expected to remain low through 2010; while in the West they are expected to peak in 2005 and then fall again. In 2000 only 16 percent of Germany's residents were under the age of 15. The greatest oversupply of teachers exists at the Gymnasium level. In the East there is an oversupply of elementary teachers, teachers of Russian, humanities, and any social studies areas tainted by Marxism-Leninism. There is a scarcity of teachers in English, French, Latin (which replaced Russian), ethics, and the arts. Class sizes can run as high as 30 pupils; in Saxony in the late 1990s the limit for elementary classes was 32. The birthrate began to rise again in 1994, creating a greater demand for elementary teachers by 2000, but an oversupply of teachers at the secondary level persists. Young teachers who have spent five or more years at the university are often in their late twenties when they begin teaching. As a result, only about one-fifth of the country's teachers are under 35. Since West German teachers hold civil servant status, they cannot be dismissed nor can they be easily displaced from one school to another.
Summary
Public school education in Germany today confronts a spectrum of challenges not unfamiliar to American educators. Some Germans find the school curriculum outdated, as the schools struggle to keep pace with technological innovation. In comparison to other industrialized countries, Germany ranks nineteenth in number of computers per thousand of population, nineteenth in Internet service providers, and seventeenth in the number of Internet users. The high cost of telephone calls makes Internet usage expensive. New training programs and apprenticeships for workers in high tech fields have not kept up with the demand for qualified technicians and software engineers. In addition, the presence of the Internet in schools causes some school children to question the knowledge and authority of their teachers, and opens the door to hundreds of information sources not approved by any state.
Furthermore, since the early 1990s, Germany has suffered from unemployment rates as high as 12 percent in the West and nearly 20 percent in the East. As a result, some Germans question whether a good education guarantees a good job. Particularly in the East, where teachers of Russian, Marxism-Leninism, economics, political science, and the history of the working class were thrown out of work after unification, the value of education has been called into question.
The continuing presence of religion in Germany's schools would appear threatened by the pressures of immigration. Today there are about 28 million Catholics in Germany and roughly the same number of Lutherans. While these churches have traditionally dominated religious education in schools, they have attracted few believers in the East, where only 25 percent of the population is Lutheran and about 3 percent Catholic. Since the imposition of the church tax (10 percent of the individual's income tax), many East Germans have taken the legal step of disaffiliating themselves from churches, and membership has actually declined. Germany's population now encompasses 2.3 million Moslems, most of them Turks who live chiefly in the West. There are another 370,000 Orthodox Christians, 200,000 evangelical Protestants, and a growing community of 50,000 Jews, most of them immigrants from the former Soviet Union. The 1990s witnessed legal disputes in Germany about the traditional Moslem head covering worn by some schoolgirls and teachers and about the presence of crucifixes in Bavarian classrooms. It seems likely that the most acceptable solution to increasing religious diversity should be a tendency toward courses in ethics rather than religion, a trend strongly opposed by the Christian Democrats and Christian Socialist Union.
The academic success of immigrant children remains uncertain. Bilingual education programs have mostly been abandoned, although some immigrant children may participate in after-school programs or special classes to learn German as a second language. Even Berlin, where about one fifth of the schoolchildren speak a first language other than German, now has only a half-dozen schools still offering some form of bilingual education. The dropout rate for Turkish children is three times that for Germans, and German children are three times as likely as Turks to achieve the Abitur and go on to higher education. This hurdle blocks foreigners from entering the teaching profession; thus immigrant children confront teachers who seldom speak their mother tongue. The problem of immigrant children varies with geography; there are fewer foreigners in the new federal states and most of those in the West are concentrated in cities.
Another social issue challenging teachers is that schools have increasingly been expected to assume responsibilities previously held by families and, in the East, by socialist organizations. Such responsibilities have devolved onto the schools as the need increases for women as well as men to work for pay. Moreover, Germany has a high number of single parent families; in the late 1990s, half of all babies in the East were born to unmarried women. The number of single parent families means that schools need to take on some responsibilities for afternoon care, supervision of homework, and enrichment activities such as sports and arts. Some, particularly the Gesamtschulen, now offer afternoon programs or a full day of instruction.
The coming decades will bring far-reaching changes, arising from Germany's membership in the European Union. Because teachers from other European Union countries will be eligible to teach in Germany, there must be broad agreement on the qualifications required for effective teaching, such as the balance between subject matter knowledge and practical training.
Bibliography
Ashwill, Mark A., ed. The Educational System in Germany: Case Study Findings. Washington DC: National Institute on Student Achievement, Curriculum, and Assessment, 1999.
Dichanz, Horst, and John A. Zahorik. Changing Traditions in Germany's Public Schools. Bloomington, IN: Phi Beta Kappa Educational Foundation, 1998.
Fishman, Sterling, and Lothar Martin. Estranged Twins; Education and Society in the Two Germanys. New York: Praeger, 1987.
Fuhr, Christoph. The German Education System Since 1945; Outlines and Problems. Bonn: Inter Nationes, 1997.
Geschke, Otti. "Participation and Disadvantage: Women in the Educational System." In The Federal Republic of Germany; the End of an Era, ed. Eva Kolinsky, 189-198. New York: Berg, 1991.
Lamberti, Marjorie. State, Society, and the Elementary School in Imperial Germany. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Lingens, Hans G. German Higher Education. Bloomington, IN: Phi Beta Kappa Educational Foundation, 1998.
Saxony State Ministry of Culture. Bildungwege in Sachsen. 8th ed., 2000.
Stevenson, Mark A. "Flexible Education and the Discipline of the Market." International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 12 (May/June 1999): 311-324.
Streitwieser, Bernhard Thomas. "Some Thoughts on Post-Reunification Pedagogical Adjustments." European Education 31 (Fall 1999): 60-87.
Teichler, Ulrich. "Education in the Federal Republic of Germany: Recollections and Problems." In The Federal Republic of Germany; the End of an Era, ed. Eva Kolinsky, 177-188. New York: Berg, 1991.
—Helen H. Frink
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