Science and Education

All schools in Germany are subject to state supervision. Nevertheless, there is not a Schools Act that applies to all Federal Länder because the Federal German constitution gives the Länder legislative sovereignty in matters relating to culture and education. However, in the Permanent Conference of the Education Ministers of the Länder the education ministers of the sixteen Länder vote on how the federal school system can be unified in individual cases in order to ensure the comparability of the individual school systems and the mutual recognition of qualifications.
For example, across the country mandatory schooling for all children starts at six. In some Länder, however, the children have to go to school for ten full years, in most only for nine years. Then they can leave school and start a job, but then have to participate in limited teaching accompanying vocational training for a further three years.Schooling for all children starts with primary school, which lasts for four years (six in Berlin) and provides the foundations for further-reaching education. Here, the little children learn reading, writing, arithmetic, the foundations of natural and physical studies - and they practice music, artistic and technical skills.
Primary school is followed by the secondary stage that is broken down into various school types depending on the educational goal: general secondary school, intermediate secondary school, grammar school, comprehensive school. The general secondary school, which lasts for five years in most Federal Länder, gives its pupils a basic general education. Preparation for starting a subsequent career is especially important at the general secondary school. A leaving certificate from a general secondary school provides an entitlement to start vocational education. The intermediate secondary school provides an extended general education and usually last six years. In contrast to the general secondary school, the intermediate secondary school makes greater demands on the independence of its pupils. A leaving certificate from an intermediate secondary school provides an entitlement to start vocational education or education to gain qualifications for studies. The grammar school provides an extended general education, lasts for nine years and, with acquisition of a university entrance qualification, gives an entitlement to enter tertiary education, i.e. at polytechnics and universities. The comprehensive school brings together the general secondary school, intermediate secondary school and grammar school together in terms of education and organisation. Depending on performance, the pupils here gain a school-leaving certificate for vocational training or the Abitur.
Two thirds of all school-leavers from general schools have acquired the general secondary school or intermediate secondary school leaving qualification at the end of the secondary stage and attend vocational courses, one third take the Abitur.Disabled children and children with behavioural problems also have to attend school. They are given an education specially tailored to their disability at a special school.
On the whole, the German school system is characterised by a deliberate flexibility. For example, if someone attending an intermediate secondary school develops the ambition to sit the Abitur, he or she has the opportunity to move to a grammar school if his or her performance is good enough. Even people at work can gain university entrance qualifications in the so-called second educational route. Evening schools offer the opportunity for people to catch up on the leaving qualifications of all of the general schools. At colleges similar to boarding schools it is possible to gain a university entrance qualification in three to five years, but careers have to be interrupted for this.
A broad public debate about the quality of German schooling has been triggered by the publication of the OECD Pisa Study. As 15-year-old German pupils were certified to have poor reading skills, below average mathematical, scientific, analytical and application skills on an international comparison, numerous experts in the competent organisations for educational planning and school development are currently researching the reasons for these deficits and are drawing up proposals for improvements.