GAP Milestone 1983

With increased awareness and partnerships, the 1980s was a period of rapid expansion for GAPP. From higher funding to assistance from government entities, GAPP began to pick up steam and reach new records for student participation.

For the first ten years of its exchange program, GAPP worked directly with schools in both the United States and Germany to organize where students would be sent. These partnerships still exist today, but at the time GAPP organized every facet of the exchange programs for both countries. As the program began to grow rapidly in the 1980s, the logistics of the exchange process became increasingly challenging to manage. By 1982, it became too complex to organize without outside assistance. Seeing the immense value of the program, the German State Department stepped in.

In 1982, the Pädagogischer Austauschdienst, or PAD, began to help as GAPP’s German counterpart. They are a public German organization representing the Federal States, working to strengthen international relations through cooperation in the educational sector. PAD is associated with Germany’s Ministers of Education and Culture Affairs, and the organization maintains a close connection with the German government for funding and guidance. Many political officials in Germany saw the benefits of GAPP and wanted to help the program thrive.

PAD Helps Out

With the resources of the state department, PAD was able to organize exchanges on the German side, making the process easier for students and administrators. Their ability to find funding also helped subsidize many of the costs that exchange students could not cover themselves. The organization’s mission was to raise standards for the educational sector and increase international mobility.

PAD found that school exchanges could be a great way to accomplish both of these goals and they saw GAPP as having a positive influence on the quality of student learning environments. Individuals who participated in exchanges developed better linguistic and intercultural skills, not to mention forming valuable friendships and partnerships.

GAPP participation multiplied during the early 1980s, and the entire decade was a period of rapid expansion for the program. With increasing participation numbers from both Americans and Germans, the program received more financial support from various governmental and private sources. School partnerships increased from a few dozen in the 1970s to 149 by 1982. Over the rest of the decade, this number would rise to over 600.

German Participation Numbers Elevate

PAD’s assistance made the German side of operations far more manageable, and each part of the exchange process became increasingly efficient. As a result, participation numbers for German students, having been just under 2,000 in 1982, would more than triple to 6,025 by 1989. Total students would also grow dramatically, from 3,404 to over ten thousand.

Today, almost 800 schools are partnered with GAPP, and more than 400,000 students have participated in exchanges. This massive increase from its humble beginnings is largely due to cooperation by the German government, and the assistance PAD had provided over the years.

Changes Begin To Occur In Germany

During the 1980s, relations between the U.S. and East Germany had reduced in hostility, with students making day trips into East Berlin and other areas close to the border. As the decade progressed, Soviet control over East Germany, and many of the nations they occupied after World War 2, began to weaken. East Germans started to flood to the Western side, setting the stage for the fall of the Eastern Bloc nations.

As East Germany began to fall apart, GAPP students would be more restricted in their ability to cross the border between East and West. Nevertheless, a handful of exchange students were present in Germany for a monumental moment in world history: The fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany.