This is a kind of seismograph that measures every two years the state of the educational system, from kindergarten to university, which the educational information group produces: the national report on education “Education in Germany 2024”, which scientists under the address of the Leibniz Institute for Educational Research and Information Studies (DIPF), presented on Monday, has more than 400 pages. A systematic inventory of the entire educational system, which should serve as a guide for the actions of politicians in the coming years.
Researchers have little to offer this year that is encouraging. Overall, the education sector appears to be a permanent work in progress, overstimulated and overburdened by well-known long-term problems: a shortage of skilled workers, the continuing influx of immigrants, persistent social inequalities, and a growing decline in performance. “The education system is operating at full capacity and is under great pressure to adapt,” the group of authors wrote in concluding their report.
Daycare centers and schools in particular suffer from the constant influx of immigrant children who need to be integrated. The numbers have risen dramatically across all age groups between 2012 and 2022. While just over a decade ago around 28,000 primary school-age children arrived in Germany as refugees, by 2022 the figure had risen to 146,000. . Therefore, the age group three to less than six years old, particularly relevant for early education, has grown significantly, with a 20 percent increase in the last ten years. The typical elementary school age group has also grown by 16 percent during this period. All these children must be given a place at school and learn German.
“The integration of people with experience in refugees and migration has become a permanent task and a major challenge for which there are currently no sustainable concepts,” says Kai Maaz, director general of DIPF and spokesperson for the group of authors.
The theme of education in an immigrant society is present throughout the education report, said Federal Minister of Education Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP). “We must critically question whether the structures offered by our educational system still adjust to the diversity of realities of life in our country.” She referred to the so-called Start-Up Opportunities Program, with which the federal and state governments want to support 4,000 schools in disadvantaged areas.
The growing heterogeneity of the student body also has a negative impact on performance, as educational studies unanimously show. Scientists point out that the proportion of children and young people who do not reach minimum standards in reading is high, even in international comparison. In 2011, the proportion of fourth graders who did not meet minimum standards in reading was twelve percent. The same number of children reached the highest level of proficiency. In 2021, the proportion of high-achieving children fell to eight percent, while at the same time 19 percent did not meet minimum standards.
This is a negative development that is also causing more and more young people to leave school without a qualification: in 2013, the figure was 5.7 percent and in 2022, 6.9 percent. And socially based inequalities in educational participation also persist. Only 32 percent of children from socioeconomically disadvantaged families receive a recommendation to attend a primary school, compared to 78 percent from more affluent families.
To a large extent, this is due to poorer grades. But even with the same performance and grades, 17 percent of children from disadvantaged families do not attend secondary school despite being advised to do so. Risk situations such as parents with little education, risk of poverty and unemployment are particularly common in immigrant households, single-parent families and families with many children.
Researchers agree that adequate support in daycare could counteract this trend. But children of immigrant origin are clearly underrepresented in daycare. Of children whose parents were both born in Germany, 100 percent currently attend day care between the ages of three and six. However, of children whose parents were born abroad, only 78 percent do so. In fact, this proportion has decreased by seven percent compared to 2014.
Systematic language assessments followed by compulsory attendance at pre-school, such as the tests for four-and-a-half-year-olds in Hamburg, are not yet carried out in all federal states. “We must be aware that socio-educational inequalities not only arise when they become visible in educational studies, but also and above all in early childhood,” concludes Maaz.
The authors of this year’s report focus on vocational training. According to the report, there were more apprenticeships available than demand in 2022 for the first time since 1995, but significant problems remain in matching supply and demand. Above all, there are many vacancies in the sales and nutrition sectors, while in IT there are numerous unplaced candidates. Around two thirds of young people with at most a secondary education qualification who start an apprenticeship do not start in the profession they really want and make concessions, for example in terms of income or working hours.
And, in particular, young people with a low educational level often do not complete any training. 17 percent of all young adults aged 25 to 34 do not have any professional qualifications. Many of them work as skilled workers in “low-prestige” jobs, as the report states: disproportionately often in the cleaning industry, catering or in warehouses and delivery services.
However, the researchers see a slight ray of hope in their long-term prognosis: long-term observation of previously low-skilled people born between 1940 and 1949 has shown that 46 percent have acquired new qualifications during their lifetime. , some of them becoming master craftsmen or even university graduates. However, it is questionable whether these people, born during the war and post-war, are representative of current generations.
The academization process has been paralyzed for the moment. Both the number of people able to study and those starting university, as well as the number of students and degrees, have stagnated for some time, the researchers point out. The classic “working class kids” are still underrepresented. Only 25 percent of children from non-academic homes continue studying, compared to 78 percent of those from academic homes.
For many, studying is not their first training. One in four students has already completed their training previously, and in private universities, even one in two. “With a strong focus on continuing education and a range of highly specialized courses, private universities have responded very specifically to the educational needs of very specific groups of people, often groups that are traditionally underrepresented in German higher education.” , the report states. These include those who are moving up the educational ladder and older people who are already working and sometimes already have families.
