Germany - Education
Germany has one of the world's highest levels of education, technological development, and economic productivity. Germany's education system has long been criticized for sharp divisions in educational opportunity between children from affluent families and those from poor families or with immigrant backgrounds. Germany has a three-tier system for secondary education, which ranks pupils by ability when they finish elementary school. It can determine early on whether a child will have access to university or college. the country's dual-track school system, which divides students into those who are deemed fit to go on to higher education and those who are channeled to vocational schools when they have completed 10 years of school, perpetuates inequality.
Since the end of World War II, the number of youths entering universities has more than tripled, and the trade and technical schools of the Federal Republic of Germany (F.R.G.) are among the world's best. With a per capita income level of more than $28,700, Germany is a broadly middle class society. A generous social welfare system provides for universal medical care, unemployment compensation, and other social needs. Millions of Germans travel abroad each year.
The federal government shares control over education with the states. However, the federal government has primary responsibility for the vocational training system. Kindergarten is available to every child between the ages of three and six. Everyone is required to attend school beginning at the end of their sixth year and must remain in some form of school or training for 12 years. Anyone who leaves school after nine years is required to complete a three-year vocational training program.
Primary school begins at age six and generally lasts for four years (six in Brandenburg and Berlin). Following primary school, the first stage of secondary general education begins. In the fifth and sixth grades, teachers evaluate pupils and recommend a path for their continuing education, but the parents’ wishes are taken into account.
There are four options for secondary school. One option is secondary general school. On completion, pupils receive a certificate that entitles them to attend a vocational training program. A second option is intermediate school, which provides more complete education during grades 5–10 and prepares pupils for a wider range of secondary education opportunities. A third option is college-preparatory high school, which lasts for nine years, including the upper stage, which normally extends from grade 11 through grade 13 and provides the most demanding and in-depth education available.
In order to be admitted to a university, high-school students must take a rigorous exam called das Abitur that tests them on four to five subjects. However, holders of diplomas from vocational upper secondary schools and technical high schools also are eligible to attend a university. A fourth secondary-school option is the comprehensive school, which combines several of the paths described above. Finally, special schools accommodate disabled or special-education students. About 70 percent of secondary-school graduates receive three years of vocational training, consisting of a combination of theoretical knowledge gained in the classroom and practical experience gained in the workplace as apprentices. This combination is known as the dual system. Others may attend academic vocational schools full-time for three years.
The alternative to some form of vocational training is university study. Most German universities are public and do not charge tuition to students pursuing a first degree on a timely basis. However, the introduction of limited fees is being discussed. A few relatively new private universities charge tuition, but they lag behind the public universities in research, the range of academic disciplines, and, arguably, public acceptance. Germany has more than 90 universities that award doctoral degrees and 190 technical colleges that specialize in such disciplines as engineering, information technology, and business administration but are not eligible to award doctorates.
In 1998 a reform to the higher education system introduced a distinction between bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Many German universities suffer from overcrowding, and students sometimes have difficulty making steady progress toward their degrees. Some subjects, particularly medicine, are subject to limited enrollment. The percentage of Germans with university degrees (19.3 percent) is much lower than in the United Kingdom (37.5 percent), Australia (36.3 percent), Finland (36.3 percent), or the United States (33.2 percent).
In the German academic system (which has changed only slightly), all power was concentrated in the hands of the Ordinarien, i.e. the highest ranking professors, some of whom were able to make and break careers also beyond their “own” department. It was up to them to decide whom to graduate, whom to allow for a PhD and a Habilitation (“second book” professorial qualification, necessary to become university professor), and whom to give a position. And they remained the direct superior to everyone they hired, only Ordinarien themselves were not personally dependent on other individual academics.
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