Educational Concepts in Germany

In December 2001, Germany was shaken to its core by the first PISA study. Not only has a great deal been done since then in schools – the value attached to education in early childhood has also increased.

There was a time when the German nursery school model was exported with just as much success as the country’s cars and machines – even the word “kindergarten” was adopted or translated into many different languages. That’s a long time ago now, however: the first kindergarten, which became an international benchmark, was founded in Thuringia in 1837 by education scientist Friedrich Fröbel.

These days, Germany has long lost its “market leader” status in the area of early childhood education. In 2008, the OECD compared the quality of education provided to the under sixes in 25 OECD countries: Germany was ranked 14th, the first places going to the Scandinavian countries. All of them spent at least one percent of their gross national income on early childhood education, while Germany invested a mere 0.4 percent.

Admittedly, this figure has since risen to 0.5 percent, though the additional money has mainly been spent on increasing quantity rather than quality. From 2013, parents will have a legal entitlement to childcare for the under threes, which will necessitate a huge expansion of day care facilities. Although 100,000 places have already been created over the past few years, this is not nearly enough to satisfy demand, and many parents still cannot find a nursery or childcare place for their under threes. Whether this will change in 2013 remains to be seen.

Academic qualifications for greater professionalization

Over the past ten years, childcare facilities have seen expectations and requirements rise more sharply than investments. Educators today have to perform far more tasks than in the past: they are required to document the development of the children in their care and give individual attention to each child. They are also expected to promote language acquisition, teach early maths and science, and introduce their charges to basic media skills. To prepare childcare professionals for this broader spectrum of duties, there is a drive towards placing their training on an academic footing.

After all, pre-school teachers with an academic qualification have long been common in many European countries, and nowadays more than 70 degrees in early childhood education are on offer in Germany.

That is not nearly enough to produce the necessary numbers of professional teachers, however. “I do not believe that academization is the best way forward”, says Gerhard Seiler from Germany’s BIBER early childhood education network. He explains that the training provided at non-academic vocational schools often reaches an academic level on the theoretical side and, most importantly, includes intensive phases of practical instruction. He believes that it is essential that this practical teaching not be lost in a programme of academic training as otherwise the same effect would be achieved that is often observed among teachers these days: “They complete a great course of theoretical instruction but then find themselves being thrown in at the deep end when they start actually teaching at schools.”

Hilde von Balluseck is one of the co-founders of Germany’s first degree in early childhood education at the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences in Berlin. She says: “The process of academization has motivated vocational training institutions to make a huge effort to improve the quality of their training”. Hilde von Balluseck likewise is not in favour of complete academization, but wishes to see vocational schools and universities working together: “the perfect models are ones in which the vocational school training is designed in such a way that a major part of it can count towards a university degree programme.”

The co-construction concept

Enhancing the quality of training is one thing, but to improve pre-school education it is at least as important to provide continuing and further training for the teachers already working in this area. These days a wide range of such courses is available. Despite the heavy workload they face, early childhood teachers are very willing to specialize, says Gerhard Seiler. Many of them are extremely aware nowadays of the fact that they are providing education, and therefore require specialist knowledge and skills. “It is very important, however, that the increased educational expectations at kindergartens do not result in them becoming more school-like. It is not a question of teaching knowledge in the conventional fashion”, stresses Seiler. “Educators must learn to regard the child as an active constructor of his or her educational processes”, agrees educational scientist Hilde von Balluseck. This is based on the pedagogical concept of co-construction preached above all by early childhood education specialist Wassilios Fthenakis.

Nursery schools are educational institutions

The dramatic increase in the value attached to early childhood education over the past ten years is due primarily to what has come to be known as the PISA shock. The German educational system had scored badly in an international comparison conducted by the OECD in 2001. “Businesspeople and politicians began to fear that this would make Germany less competitive, so they took a look at the causes and became aware of something that has been a well-known fact in the fields of psychology and educational science for decades: education begins in the first years of life, not only at school”, says Hilde von Balluseck, who since achieving emeritus status has been editor-in-chief at Erzieherin.de, a specialist online magazine for educators. Many high-profile initiatives were launched by companies, foundations and Germany’s education ministry. The country’s federal states approved education plans for the early childhood segment, thus acknowledging a fact that has been obvious in other countries for years: nursery schools are educational institutions.

To ensure that educators and nursery school teachers can adequately fulfil their educational mandate, however, they must receive appropriate pay – something that is demanded not only by the unions. In Germany, a nursery school teachers earns on average 2,000 euros a month gross, while a primary school teacher is paid around 3,700 euros. “Nursery teachers earn a pittance; what is more, many of the jobs are part-time positions”, agrees Gerhard Seiler. “Many educators either switch relatively quickly to other jobs upon completion of their training or leave the profession to start a family. The quality of the education provided to nursery school children suffers as a result.”