Germans have long been proud of their schooling. Too long, it seems
THE shame of it! In a new study of school pupils' performance by the OECD, Germany, the world's third-biggest economic power, the “land of poets and thinkers”, was ranked a miserable 21st out of 31 countries for the reading abilities of its 15-year-olds, 20th in mathematics and 20th in science. A country long proud—and seemingly with reason—of its record in education has been shown up as a Dummkopf. Its government and citizens alike are in a tizzy of alarm and self-doubt.
“Shocking”, “scandalous” and “catastrophic”, politicians, parents and educators have wailed in unison. And beneath the average figures lie others even more shocking for Germany's deeply democratic burghers: evidence of a wide gap—one of the widest found by the OECD's researchers—between Germany's highest-performing students and its lowest. Nearly a quarter of its 15-year-olds could not read and understand a simple text. Not that Germany can take much comfort from the achievement of its pupils at the other end of the scale. Only 28% of its 15-year-olds reached the study's top two levels of reading ability, compared with half in Finland (which was ranked first overall) and over a third in a dozen other countries.
How can this be? Whatever else, Germany is famous for its thoroughness. Its technical education was one of the wonders of the 19th century, and long after. What has gone wrong? Almost as alarming as the figures, no one can tell.
Blaming the large number of students of foreign descent, who account for one in ten pupils in German schools, is not an adequate excuse: German-speaking Austria—yes, easy-going Austria—came tenth in the reading tests, although it has a similar proportion of pupils of foreign descent.
What else might be wrong? Money? Germany's spending per pupil is a bit below the OECD average. But so is Britain's and British pupils, to the surprise of many there, figured in the top ten in all the tests.
The organisation of schooling, then? That would be hard to judge. Education is the responsibility of the country's 16 distinct Länder (states), and the various systems they use range from the highly selective to the fully comprehensive.
There is more of a clue, perhaps, to be found in the teaching force itself. Germany's school-teachers are relatively well paid, but they are too few: Germany has one of the highest pupil-teacher ratios among OECD countries, and in many subjects an acute shortage of teachers. Nor are new ones flocking in: two-fifths of all teachers are over 50. One in three admits to feeling “burnt out”; nearly three-quarters take early retirement on health grounds. Inevitably, the quality of teaching suffers.
Other explanations abound. One is the German zeal for rote learning, rather than for teaching children to think for themselves. Another is the inadequate support given to weaker students, and the requirement that any pupil who gets poor marks in just two subjects has to repeat the whole year. Most of the other 15-year-old pupils involved in the OECD study were all in the same grade, having gone up with their contemporaries as a group; the German 15-year-olds spanned four grades, because so many had had to repeat a year or more.
Some people blame Germany's compressed school day, which starts at 8am and usually ends at 1.30pm or 2pm. Many parents would like a later start and a longer day. Some Länder are trying out all-day schooling, but so far only on a small scale. The big need, runs another argument, is for more free kindergarten places, to help, in particular, children from non-German-speaking immigrant families. At the top of the scale, it has long been argued that more pupils should be encouraged to go on to higher education. At present, only 28% do so, compared with an OECD average of 45%—and only 16% emerge (typically, some six years later) with a degree.
Since the report was published last week, Germans have been racking their brains over all these questions and more. No one yet has the answers. But many Germans are already convinced that nothing short of a “cultural revolution” throughout the education system is now required.