Talk:Education in Germany

Mark List

Actually you do not pass an exam if you only have 4 points. That is already failed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.192.142.196 (talk) 00:26, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

That is not true in general. In Thuringia, beginning with Abitur 2011, 3 out of 5 exams have to be 5 points or higher and the sum has to be 25 or higher. (Thüringer Schulordnung (2009) §91) Toscho (talk) 18:54, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Comparison with US found to be unhelpful

The section on universities seems to be almost entirely a comparison with the United States - this doesn't help for those of us who want to understand the German HE system and ...um... don't come from the US (yes, we exist, shocking I know).

I was just thinking the same thing, and I do come from the US... o.O but definitely agree with you on that it makes too much comparison with the US. Thomasc0928 (talk) 12:53, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

An American point of view

I think the comparison would the Americans understand the German education system better. It would also help if the comparison involved other countries as well.

$a^{2}+b^{2}=c^{2}$

See math it is very basic, and thus so is Germany. That is my opinion because i don't know the difference between the German education and the education system of other countries.

So all in all if the comparison involved other countries it would be much more helpful.

Article on universities

Universities want moving to List of universities in Germany, which is actually a shorter list atm, which is very silly. Morwen 19:31, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)

College information

Details about college taken (with curtesy) from www.stormarnschule.de ly 14:30, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)

New Bachelor degrees

Can we have a word about the new bachelor degrees - unfortuantely I have no info on hand... THANKS. Michael

This part is quite outdated. nowadays all students have to start in Bachelor degree with an exception of law(jura) .

secondly : Highly gifted pupils can take courses at uni while being at secondary school and count the achievements in their future studies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.96.214 (talk) 08:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Scholarships

of course there are scholarships in Germany, but they are not as frequent as in the US, as education is still free and therefore you can finance yourself by working -another reasons why it takes so long to get a degree --Yak 13:49, Feb 19, 2004 (UTC)

Gymnasium, Fachochschule and Kollegschulen

What is the difference between Gymnasium, Fachochschule and Kollegschulen? Clear definition of Kollegschulen would be great...Thanks, Jo

I can't tell you much about Kollegschulen, but a Gymnasium is sort-of equivalent to a high school (plus perhaps 2 years of college), while a Fachhochschule rather corresponds to a college, maybe also to college + grad school (M. Sc.) -- while "real" universities rather provide a broad theoretical background, which (afaik) does not exist in this way in the US education until you do a PhD.

If you let me know where in the text you'd like a better explanation/differentiation between Gymnasium and Fachhochschule, I'll be glad to do it -- but being german myself, those things are so familiar that I probably don't see missing parts in the article.

best, --Pinguin.tk 22:09, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Why don't you just look at the wiki site of "Gymnasium". It can't really be compared to high school, probably be more like the "Gesamtschule". FWTTVK (talk) 16:59, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

chosen languages

"Achievements in the subjects... the chosen language, mostly English, French or Latin"
English is no chosen language but a normal subject every student has to achieve (in all states as far as I know) -Phil-

Unless they changed rules in that aspect since my Gymnasium time, students have to take a first foreign language in 5th grade and a second one in 7th grade. A third one is usually offered as a choice, starting in (I think) 10th grade. In most schools, there is no choice of the first language, and in most schools the first language is English. However, this was not universally so even in state schools - some Saarland schools close to the French border offered French, and I think some schools in the former GDR offered Russian as a first language. For the second language, the normal choice is between French or Latin. But again, some schools offer English (if not first foreign language), Old Greek, Russian, or Spanish. Some non-state schools have an even wider range. --Stephan Schulz 01:16, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

As far as I know Saarland is the only state with French as fisrt language. I still go to school and where I come from - in Thuringia - there are some differences between the schools. The Gymnasium I used to go to taught English as first language from Year 5 on, and in Year 7 you had to choose French, Russian or Latin as second language. Now I go to another Gymnasium, which offers two languages from Year 5 on (English and French) but also one language in Year 5 (English, French or Russian) as well as from Year 7 on. In Year 9 you can take Latin, and from Year 11 on you can start with Latin, French or Russian. --slg 17:03, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

At my Gymnasium in Baden-Würtemberg we could chose between English and Latin as the first language. A friend of mine picked Greek as his second language and never had English at school. Markus Schmaus 19:24, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You can pick French as a first language in Rhineland-Palatinate as well. (And Latin if you go to a school specializing on old languages). But you have to take English either as your first or second foreign language. The range of second foreign languages available is a lot broader than mentioned so far, not only at private schools. In Mecklanburg-Vorpommern Swedish is very common, Danish in Schleswig-Holstein. Russian in many former GDR federal states. You find Dutch in areas close to the Dutch border and Polish close to that border. Many schools offer Spanish, some Italian or even Japanese. And yes, Stephan, they have changed the rules: now everybody starts learning their first foreign language (English or French) in year 3 (year 1 in some federal states), starting with the second one in year 6 (at least in some states). sophie —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.72.117.183 (talk) 00:06, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

A gymnasium is a secondary school which has 12/13 years , similar to secondary schools in britain that offer the 6th grade. (the years 11 to 13 /12 are also called SECII (secondary level II) and can therefore be compared to the british 6th form as in liberality.82.83.96.214 (talk) 09:03, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Template:Education infobox

I created a template, Template:Education infobox which can give a quick at a glance demographics table for education articles. See its implementation at Education in the United States and feel free to help improve the template.--naryathegreat | (talk) 01:00, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

University rankings

The ranking of german universities by the Shanghai Jiaotong University is pretty pointless. This ranking was mainly research focused (even biased towards life siences). Typically high-class research in Germany is not carried out directly in the universities, but rather in the institutes of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. Most institutes cooperate with local universities on research and training but are not included into to ranking. I suggest to remove the comparison or explain the ranking in a separate article.

I think the focus on a specific ranking usually calls for a bias, and there should be a more comprehensive overview of the German university ranking among the world.

On the other hand, several of your claim are inaccurate conceptually: (a) A research-focused ranking is not "pointless" by itself, but rather points out the lack of Humboldt forschendes lernen (learning by research), which coincidentally was uncritically claimed to be the heritage of German universities. (b) The ranking is not "life science biased", but science biased – which is not necessarily a bad indicator, since this would too be a departure from the Humboldt vision, if German univers-ities only performs well in the humanities. (c) You might have noticed the similarly poor performance of German universities in teaching-focused rankings such as by "The Times".

Somebody might correct me, but my perception is that these rankings are taken more seriously by the German higher education administrators than maybe the comment above implies. — Ylai 11:34, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

The rankings are criticized by German universities and what the first commentator wrote is correct. What Ylai writes about Humboldt's forschendes lernen, however is incorrect - that doesn't have anything to do with scientific research of the kind that gets Nobel Prizes but with active learning based on the dialogue between an experiences professor and still inexperienced students. German universities do perform well in both sciences and humanities. Btw. it's not only the germans who criticize league tables (or rankings) based on - well, that's the point - arbitrarily selected data. You might have heard about similar protests from the US. One should always take those rankings with a pinch of salt and check which criteria they are based on (and whether that is what you're looking for). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.72.117.183 (talk) 00:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Timetables

Hey, these timetables are very wrong... I don´t know any school where Astronomy is teached...

The timetables do not come from me and I cannot easily verify them completely, but e.g. in Bavaria, there are actually astronomy classes in schools. — Ylai 11:37, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Edit: Agreed,the timetable under the name "Sample grade 10 Gymnasium timetable" is wrong, it says to have a break from 9.05 to 9.25am and from 11.00 to 11.15am, which is rarely the case (most commonly is a single break from 10.10 to 10.30am or from 10.15 to 10.35am. Therefore it is either wrong or not a good "sample" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.42.94.106 (talk) 16:00, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

At my Gymnasium in bavaria you can choose Astronomy if you want to. And of course there need to be a teacher who is permitted to teach it. And really, these timetables are very very wrong. I'm in year 10 and I've 37 periods a week. Especially in the last years timetables became bigger and bigger, because in Bavaria we have from year 2003/2004 on so called "G8". It means that you are not going 9 years (like former) to Gymnasium. The year 5, which started 2003 is the first year who is just going 8 years to Gymnasium. Well, one year is missing, so students have to learn now more in one year to write Abitur at the same level like students in "G9" . That is why timetables are bigger. Because pupils have more lessons than in former years. — lau

This discussion isn't useful. Timetables vary according to the Bundesland (concerning courses) and according to school (concerning times, breaks etc.). Thererfore, I wouldn't include a timetable at all. Concerning astronomy: its obligatory in Thuringia in 10th grade; in Saxony, it doesn't exist at all. Toscho (talk) 18:26, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Timeables differ from state and even from school to school. Times are only to apply in ranges . ie: most first lessons start between 7:30 and 8:00 (I went to a school that started at 7:45, one at 7:55, and another one at 7:30) Same is for breaks(recess)too . The most common scheme is 5min, 10 min, 20 min, 10 min 5 min. (after respective lessons of 45 minutes) but they can vary. (as in 5 min, 15 mins, 15 min, 5 mins etc. All day schools firstly go mostly until 15:00h and also have an 1 hour lunch break. Subjects differ, but the common ones are in year 9: Maths, German, English, History, geography, PE, Arts, RE, Physics, Chemisrty, Biology. Additionally to that are elective courses which differ from school to school (mostly arts related or technical ones, or home economics) 82.83.65.56 (talk) 09:11, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

general

1. I work in a German Gymnasium (as a Fremdsprachenassistentin), and a lot of the (minor) things stated in this article just don't happen here. For instance, the students go around from room to room to a teacher, not the other way around. This is minor but I think the article may be well-served to point out early that the staying-in-one room model is more traditional. 2. I have cleaned up a little bit of the spelling & grammar, but honestly to me it seems that portions of this article were translated with the help of an online translator, or the like. This makes the article very difficult to read, and of course, reduces credibility. Also, with a community like Wikipedia, I feel that it's just not necessary. 3. I put the cleanup on here - not sure if I did it right - because this article is poorly written and confusing and I feel that some of the information is outdated or incorrect. I will try to fix up what I can, but I am no authority. Mirandom 07:24, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't know how universal this is, but at my school we have about 30-40% of our lessons in our own classroom. Although of course most of the lessons are in other, often subject-based rooms, this is not the case in all of the lessons and (I suppose) probably not at all schools either. FWTTVK (talk) 17:06, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

---

"The FH Diploma is roughly equivalent to a Bachelor degree."

That's just wrong. It may be true that some international companies are badly informed about the German Education System (maybe they read this article? ;)) But judging from time spent and courses involved the Dipl. (FH) more accurately matches the Master than the Bachelor. It lacks some courses in topics like "Interculutural Communications" but includes more courses in Higher Mathematics etc..

No it's not. The credit points (Leistungspunkte) are decretory. A FH-Diplom provides not enough theoretical background and contains not enough Master courses in the Hauptstudium to be considered a Master's Degree. The FH-Diplom equals a Bachelor's Degree and the Univ-Diplom equals a Master's Degree. Only a few programs at certain Universities of Applied Sciences are seen roughly as a Master's Degree, but they need verification (accreditation, Akkreditierung) --Elceng th (talk) 14:07, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Its impossible to equalize German academic degrees like Diplom and Diplom (FH) with American academic degrees. They have different concepts and paradigms underlying. And if you come to some programmes like "Duale Ausbildung" you even get problems, just translating the concept. The comparison will get easier "thanks" to bachelorized study programmes all over Germany, but for now I wouldn't compare the study programme types with the aim to equalize some of them.Toscho (talk) 10:05, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

They implementation of the Bachelor/Master system is currently starting to gain momentum in Germany as more and more Universities and Fachhochschulen start do drop the traditional "Diplom". This process should get an own part in the article.

Considering personally experience and reports from people who had their degree beeing recognized in the US, a Magister oder a Diploma translates to a Master and not to a Bachelor in the US system. Thorben 10:55 19 August 2006

---

"In four states (Saarland, Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and Rhineland-Palatinate), children have to attend two years (grades 5 and 6) in Orientierungsstufe ("orientation phase"), a special school type that follows the Grundschule, and is intended to help decide whether the student should be sent on to Hauptschule, Realschule or Gymnasium (or in any case Gesamtschule)." This is not correct for Rhimeland-Palatinate, the Orientierungsstufe is part of the various school types. Just transition between the schools is easier after those two years than it is later.

---

$R_{ab}-{\textstyle 1 \over 2}R\,g_{ab}=\kappa T_{ab}.\,$

and

$R=R_{cd}g^{cd}\,$

But then

$\quad R_{ab}={R^{d}}_{adb}.\,$

so all in all

$R_{ab}=0.\,$ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.204.20.100 (talk) 21:04, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Editing Education in Germany (History)

Hi There, I am just tying to clear up some grammar issues, and attemting to make the article more readable. I have no knowledge of german education, so if someone could just make sure that everything is okay (I didn't really change any of the content but I sometimes had to guess at some meanings). If no one has any major obections I thought that I would do the rest of the article as well. Really interesting article, though! --DO11.10 23:48, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I moved the section "History" down, just to let the reader start with the as-is situation and the history later. MikeZ 13:47, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

POV problem, "correspondence" 13th year

The description of the German educational system has at some places a strong German POV, meaning a significantly lack of critical view and even reasoning of what is being claimed. The English Wikipedia really should not have a more problematic German POV that actually the German Wikipedia.

One POV problem is Humboldt's vision of university. Sure this is the German heritage of the university structure, but this does not mean heritage traslates into real, contemporary resemblance. Reading any set of current texts discussing German universities published in Germany (take e.g. Der Spiegel or Die Zeit), you will easily notice that nobody is claiming that the typical today's German university is that Humboldt-like.

As another POV problem, I move the following, I think really controversial sentence here:

The german school system has an additional 13th year, which means that the first couple of years at a US college corresponds to the final years of a german school.

There are two problems:

1. The 13th year is not common anymore. Many Länder have already or are going to abolish the 13th year.
2. I am aware that this view of "correspondence" is shared by a lot of people in Germany, but I neither think the "correspondence" is plausible from another (e.g. the US) POV, nor is it correct.

   Since the US college curriculum strongly varies in their depth, you cannot categorically compare the German 13th year to "the" US 1st year in college. For example, it is very far fetched to claim that any typical German Gymnasium would have 13th year courses comparable in depth to the freshman/sophomore humanities requirement of anyone of the Ivy League universities (maybe except languages). This is not even considering the majors.

Otherwise I would be glad if there could be some proof that the Lehrpläne of either of the Länder curriculum is on par with a US research university in the Carnegie classification (since these are the ones considered as "accredited" by the German Hochschulrektorenkonferenz). – Ylai 10:54, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

"[...]it is very far fetched to claim that any typical German Gymnasium would have 13th year courses comparable in depth to the freshman/sophomore humanities requirement of anyone of the Ivy League universities[...]" that may be, but really only any of the Ivy League universities; what percentage of US universities are Ivy League? FWTTVK (talk) 17:12, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

orientation stage

it is stated in the article that all states except Berlin and Brandenburg have years 5/6 in seconary school. Years 5/6 also exists as stand alone schools as well .82.83.117.83 (talk) 14:42, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Recognition of German exit exams in other countries?

Hi, how are the German exit exams recognized in other countries like the US? Example: The American High school diploma is seen as Mittlere Reife by the German institutions. This means you can't study with a High school diploma in Germany. Can one who has got Mittlere Reife (meaning he went to a Realschule or dropped school after tenth year of Gymnasium) take the SAT test and study in the USA?

Someone vandalized this page and wrote "OMG free college" in the article. I deleted that instance but there may be more instances that I didn't see.

• I tried to apply for UK universities with my German Abitur and that was easily possible. I think that also works in most other european countries, although individual universities might require that you have taken certain courses at school already. I don't know how it looks like if you have a lesser qualification such as Mittlere Reife, that should still be enough to apply for vocational training though. --Ewok 30 January 2007, 23:47

Grades

This articles makes many references to grade years. Are these terms actually used in the German education system? Even if they are it would be far more helpful to provide references to ages to help people from non-US countries understand how the system works. Dahliarose 15:25, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

The grades are called "Klassen" (Classes) so if you have a child in year 4 , you would say" my child is in Klasse 4 or 4.Klasse (class 4 or 4th class.) parallel classes are differed by alphabetically, (so if there are 4 , 4th classes, then it would be 4a,4b,4c,4d)82.83.117.83 (talk) 14:46, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Overview - Imagesuggestion

I'd like to see an image like the following in this article: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Deutsches_Bildungssystem.png (from article de:Deutsches Bildungssystem). Maybe in a simplified version, the "Sekundarstufe II" is indeed a very complex system. Moreover is this image buggy. After a "Duale Ausbildung" you can directly move to a "Fachoberschule"; the image lacks this possibility. Additionally the "FOS 13" is sometimes called "BOS" for "Berufsoberschule" (roughly "upper vocational school"), f. e. in lower saxony. -- 91.4.77.141 00:15, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Schedule

It is not true that there are 5 minute breaks between the periods and I've never heard about that. Next time you should have a German write an article about Germany, not somebody else. Plus, There is no shuch thing like an enforcement of teachers smoking on school campus, neither is there one fore students

• I went to a German school for 13 years and in each of those years we had 5 minute breaks after 45 minute lessons, even for "double lessons" (90 minutes). So I don't think you got that right there. As for smoking: There are different regulations in different schools and Länder, ranging from a total ban of smoking for everyone (including teachers) to seperated smoking areas for students that are 16 and older (and sometimes for the teachers as well).--Ewok, 30 January 2007, 23:41 CET

We also don't have 5min breaks. The scheduling is different at almost every school. --A3li 09:59, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

There definitely are breaks of 5 minutes, as well as one with 15 and later one with 10 minutes in Schleswig-Holstein. It's probably varying between the Länder. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.7.141.166 (talk) 21:06, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

It's the same at my school (in North-Rhine-Westphalia). FWTTVK (talk) 17:15, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm a german student, and 5 minutes breaks are in existence, at least in my school. Bu i think the problem here is that school can change such rules and make then fit to their purposes, as an example, my school right now things about changing it to 10 min break system without the 'big' breaks in between. But overall, the 5 min break can be seen as okay, most schools do have it. 66.19.235.141 (talk) 06:22, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

It does not only differ from state to state but from school to school. I went to three different secondary schools (due to moving) and it was in the same state nevertheless. One school started at 7:55 and had a 5 min break , 15 min 15 min, 5 min. (and following them only 5 minutes break ) A different one had started at 7:45 and had a ten minute break as first break , following another ten minute and a 15 minute break and thereafter only 5 minutes breaks. the last one would start at 7:30 and had a 5 min break a 15 min break a 15 minute break and 1 h break(for lunch as it was a day school) and thereafter only 5 minutes break. 82.83.115.103 (talk) 10:31, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Odd comment

,There are usually no security guards at German schools' Where on earth are there security guards in schools?! Surly most schools have a prefecting system, It seems odd to point out something like this as something that they specifically don't have! MHDIV ɪŋglɪʃnɜː(r)d(Suggestion?|wanna chat?) 12:09, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• Seems like an US-biased notice to me, the US is the only country I heard of where there are security guards at schools. --Ewok 30 January 2007, 23:44 CET

• • The public school system in the US usually has police officers stationed at Public High Schools.--137.112.65.140 (talk) 21:57, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Model timetables

These timetables are not very useful since school in Germany almost everywhere starts at 8.00 o' clock. Here would be times from my school: (some school do not have the 15 minute break after 6th period, but these times are much more acurate than the ones starting before 8 am... I never heard of a school starting before 8 and if it exists in Germany, than it's an exception! meta:User:louisana

8.00-8.45
8.50-9.35
9.55-10.40
10.45-11.30
11.50-12.35
12.40-13.25
13.40-14.25
14.30-15.15

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.205.4.73 (talk) 21:08, 15 March 2007 (UTC).

My gymnasium started at 7:45am every day. There definitely are differences between individual schools. TrACE666 13:57, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

At our gymnasium, class starts at 8am, which is imho definitely the standard. Also, I dont't like these table screenshot images. I think I'm going to convert them into real HTML tables. --A3li 09:59, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Most schools in my (very rural) region start at either 7:30 or 8:30. That's because there would not be enough school buses to carry students to school if every school started at the same time. But I have to agree that 8am is the norm for most schools. 217.229.162.174 20:18, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

In our "Kreis" school always starts at 7:50, at least for the 7 or 8 Gymnasien (I don't know about the other schools). FWTTVK (talk) 17:18, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Times are different at each school. Subjects taken are different in each federal state (plus it's up to the school whether they offer subjects like philosophy or psychology). It's just impossible to write something that is correct everywhere. In my town for example, we started at 8.00 in primary school but at 7.55 in secondary school (so we would finish in time for people to catch the bus). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.72.117.183 (talk) 00:33, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

The local polytechnical Gymnasium @7.00, the regular Gymnasium some blocks away @7.30, the two local Grundschulen 7.10 and 7.20. In general school, in the former East Germany, has the tradition to start as early as possible, in the former West Germany school tends to start later. --Elceng th (talk) 14:07, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I was at three different schools and one started at 7:55 , another one at 7:50 and another one at 7:30. My primary school started at 7:45. One should rather say they begin between 7:30 and 8:00 then saying they begin at 8:00. In the end it is not important what minute they start but rather in which timeframe. so one could say @schools start between 7:30 and 8:00 and end between 13:00 and 14:00 (unless they are all day schools which end between 15:00 and 16:00 h82.83.115.103 (talk) 10:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Private Schools

I am missing the "Private Schools" like Montessori Schulen or Waldorfschulen. They have a totally different structure than the "state schools"...

Security guards

There are usually no security guards at German schools

This statement is made in such a way as to suggest that there is something remarkable about a country whose schools do not have security guards. Are there any countries (except ones where wars are currently being fought, such as Iraq) where schools do routinely employ security guards?--Oxonian2006 15:30, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

The US, for instance. FWTTVK (talk) 17:19, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Costs of studying

>> There are cheap rooms for students built by the Studentenwerk, an independent non-profit organization partially funded by the state. These may cost 150 EUR per month, without any food. Otherwise an apartment can cost 500 EUR, but often students share apartments, with 3 or 5 people per apartment.

This paragraph gives the impression, that a typical student pays 100-170 EUR for housing per month. Even though this amount depends heavily on the city you live in, this seems to be too low for me. Without having a good reference at hand (neither has the article) I would say, the costs are more 150-350 EUR for most cities.

>> other social services for students (40-100 EUR per semester) Again this depends on the university, but those cases I know, more than 100 EUR is common.

School T-Shirts

Is it not very rare that students by school T-Shirts and wear them? I never heard of that or saw that happening.

In Schleswig-Holstein it's quite common, at least, in the nothern part. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.7.141.166 (talk) 21:10, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

School T-Shirts are in my area absolutly not common, most students don't even have one plus there is no one who offers them. The School T-Shirts depend heavenly on school, area and tradition. But I think it's fair to say that there is not such a high amount on shirts like in American Highschools!66.19.235.141 (talk)

never seen anyone with a school t-shirt. but those finishing high school usually design their own school-leaving t-shirts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.72.117.183 (talk) 00:35, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Where I am from every Gymnasium has them.--Greatgreenwhale (talk) 02:13, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Abitur marks

Article says, "for example a medical course could require an Abitur grade of between 1.0 to 1.5, approximately equivalent to a 3.9 - 4.5 GPA in the USA." The standard grade point system used in the US is a four-point system, so those numbers make no sense. Will someone please add more info about the grading system? That would not only help the article but also help avoid such silly comparison mistakes. Thanks.

There are two grade point systems used the same time. The first ist the traditional one with grades from 1(very good) to 6(insufficient). To figure out the success more detailed there is a point system with a maximum of 15 points (excellent) for each course you take. The point system is used in the 11th to 13th year. When you get your Abitur grade it contains a sum of points (counted and multiplied/divides by factors)* which is converted to a traditional grade. If all your courses are 14 points, you get a traditional grade of 1.0 . (It is even possible to get a 0.9 for example.

• there are some different rules to do this calculation

The table is wrong, especially the translations for befriedigend, ausreichend and so on. And, very important by the way, 4 Notenpunkte' is NOT passed, it's failed because it's below 5. --Elceng th (talk) 14:07, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

My translations were changed, some weeks ago, and I'm not that good in English to speak against the current translations, although I find them rather clunky and unelegant. If you find better ones, change them. The problems with 4 points, I had already added after the table. Toscho (talk) 10:05, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Scheine

If I understood it correctly, students in German universities must earn a certain number of certificates before they can become eligible to take their preliminary or final degree exams. It is not clear to me however how those certificates are earned. Does one only need to attend lectures/seminars, or is it also necessary to hand in homework assignments or lab reports and perhaps pass midterm exams ? Thanks for the information. 200.177.26.151 01:59, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

What one needs to do to earn a Schein depends on the course and the instructor. Quite common are: weekly homework or lab reports, weekly homework/lab reports plus a final exam, a final exam only, a research paper, a presentation and regular attendance, another project of some sort. Mauerblümchen 20:19, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Dual enrollment

In recent years many universities (right now about 50) have implemented dual enrollment programs (Frühstudium) that allow students at a Gymnasium to attend regular university courses for credit (earning Scheine). The first university was Köln in 2001. Could someone whose English is better than mine alter the paragraph beginning with "Yet another difference: while at Gymnasium a student cannot take courses that result in university credits." to reflect that development? Mauerblümchen 20:19, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Förderschule

There is too little about the Förderschule. (Schools of special education) The system of special education in Germany is heavily disputed. Germany is the only Western country where students with disabilities can be ordered by state authorities to attend a Förderschule. The vast majority of students with disabilities attend a Förderschule. Critics see this as an act of discrimination. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.234.122.44 (talk) 14:49, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

What happened?

Why were the ==Overview== and ==History== sections deleted? Why is this now a political statement about equality and racism instead of a basic, neutral article on the German educational system? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:48, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I contributed to the part about inequality (which has been started by somebody else), while i did not delete anything. I think inequality of educational outcomes has received a lot of media-coverage in German in the last few years [1] so it should be covered here. However i do not think anybody was making a political statement here and nobody was talking about racism.

I have had a look into the articles history [2] and it seems that the parts "overview" and "history" have been deleted by an IP. I have included it into the article again now. Seems that it is mostly unsourced and somebody really should provide sources... but living in Germany i know that most of the claims that have been made are true even if no source was provided.

--Resilienzi (talk) 07:44, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for finding that again. I appreciate it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:03, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Duration of compulsory school

Because many people seemingly believe the english language websites out there, which speak of 9 to 10 years of compulsory school, I give some references resp. quotations to resp. from the school laws of the Länder about the duration of compulsory school. The laws are in German, so I understand that most users of en.wikipedia.org don't understand them. (Some of them are even so unclear and complicated, such that I don't fully understand them as well.)

Land	Passage in the law	Duration of compulsory school
Baden-Württemberg	§§72 ff SchulG B-W	4+5+3=12 years
Bayern	§35 (2) BayEUG: Die Schulpflicht dauert zwölf Jahre, soweit dieses Gesetz nichts anderes bestimmt.	12 years
Berlin	§§ 42, 43 SchulG Berlin	10+x years
Brandenburg	§§38, 30 BbgSchulG	10+x years
Bremen	§§54 (1) BremSchulG: Die Schulpflicht dauert 12 Jahre, soweit gesetzlich nichts anderes bestimmt ist.	12 years
Hamburg	§37 HmbSG: Die Schulpflicht endet grundsätzlich elf Jahre nach ihrem Beginn [..]	11 years
Hessen	§§59, 62 HSchG	10+x years
Mecklemburg-Vorpommern	§§41ff SchulG M-V	10 or 9+x years
Niedersachsen	§65 (1) NSchG: Die Schulpflicht endet grundsätzlich zwölf Jahre nach ihrem Beginn.	12 years
Nordrhein-Westfalen	§38 SchulG NRW	10+x years
Rheinland-Pfalz	§60 (2) SchulG R-P	10 or 9+3=12 years
Saarland	§§4 (1), 9 (1) Schulpflichtgesetz	9+3=12 years
Sachsen	§28 (2) SächsSchulG: Die Vollzeitschulpflicht dauert neun Schuljahre; die Berufsschulpflicht dauert in der Regel drei Schuljahre.	9+3=12 years
Sachsen-Anhalt	§40 (1) SchulG LSA: Die Schulpflicht endet zwölf Jahre nach ihrem Beginn.	12 years
Schleswig-Holstein	§§20ff SchulG S-W	9+x years
Thüringen	§17 (2) ThürSchulG: Die Schulpflicht besteht in der Regel für die Dauer von zwölf Jahren und gliedert sich in eine Vollzeitschulpflicht und eine Berufsschulpflicht.	12 years

Here x stands for the duration of vocational education or till the age of 18 years.

So with the exception of Mecklemburg-Vorpommern and Rheinland-Pfalz compulsory education last for effectively at least 11 years and in 9 of 16 Ländern it lasts for more or less explicitly 12 years.

I'll keep trying to find English sources for that. Until that, please believe me or read the referenced law passages if you can. Toscho (talk) 18:24, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

OK. I have found en English source and added it to the article: http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/ressources/eurydice/pdf/047DN/047_DE_EN.pdf Toscho (talk) 10:59, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Smoking in German Schools

I think smoking is not allowed in German schools any longer, because of our new smoking laws. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.201.83.191 (talk) 20:48, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Fachhochschule and the Abitur

The article states that the Fachhochschule was a post-Abitur training. While it is true, that students who have a Abitur can enroll in a Fachhcoschule, one does not need the Abitur to attend one. Students holding a Fachabitur may also attend a Fachhcoschule. I would like to change this.--Greatgreenwhale (talk) 21:50, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Student Housing

“But, as mentioned above, there is no university-provided student housing on campus in Germany, since most campuses are scattered all over the city for historical reasons.”

I really think that sentence is wrong, because I do live on campus... in a dorm (Studentenwohnheim) provided by the University.--Greatgreenwhale (talk) 12:08, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

That depends on the university. Some universities, especially new ones, have been constructed similar to western universities, for there is student housing on or very near campus. Some universities, especially old ones, have been integrated into the city surrounding it. Consequently, there is no or little campus and student housing facilities (operated by Studentenwerke) are located elsewhere. Examples: New: Technische Universität Ilmenau, Old: University of Leipzig. But I can give no numerical evidence. Toscho (talk) 12:22, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

So I think we should change this and write that sometimes it is possible to live on Campus and sometimes not. Because "no university-provided student housing" sounds like there is no possibility to live on Campus at all. How do you think about this?--Greatgreenwhale (talk) 12:42, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I think the emphasis here is ON campus. It is true that there is student accomodation and dorms, but they aren't On the campus, but rather close by. SO it should say that student accomodation is avalable but in most cases it is not a part of the university but rather the student support fund. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.117.83 (talk) 14:57, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I really used to live ON campus. My dorm was next to the university. I do not however know how common that is. May be my alma mater is the only one, who provides her students with that option.-- Greatgreenwhale (talk) 09:25, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Education of teachers section removed

Why did you remove the education of teachers section? As far as I know there are still lots of pädagogische Hochschulen (teachers colleges) in Germany. Just look at [3] (and actually I have relatives who are teachers, but do not hold a Abitur and never went to university. So I do not understand why you say that it was not possible in NRW. They are from NRW)--Greatgreenwhale (talk) 02:10, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Härtefall

I wrote that "at least 2 percent of students must be Härtefälle (cases of hardship)". The quota however is two percent and not "at least two percent". I wrote "at least two percent" because the university is of course allowed to admit as many cases of hardship as it pleases. Does it make sense to write it like this? I appreciate your comments.-- Greatgreenwhale (talk) 19:15, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

IQ and scholastic performance: Claims of Focus Magazine and reaction of Heller

when making this change you probably did not notice, that the quotes from Heller and the Focus Magazine were included in the source. On your userpage I saw that you speak German at a professional level, so I am including the German quote here:

Die Leidtragenden ideologischer Verblendung sind hier die Jugendlichen, nicht die Verursa-cher solcher Irrtümer – die ex post fast nie zur Rechenschaft gezogen werden (Heller, 2004). Beispielhaft sei hier ein im Focus-Online erschienener Artikel „Hauptschule als Auslaufmo-dell“ vom 7. August 2008 angeführt. Der Autor, ein Hamburger Erziehungswissenschaftler, behauptet darin, die Hauptschule sei „mittlerweile der wichtigste Faktor, um in die Kriminali-tätsspirale einzusteigen ... Arme Kinder landen völlig unabhängig von ihrer Intelligenz über-wiegend in der Hauptschule, während dumme Kinder reicher Eltern mit viel Nachhilfe durch-aus zum Abitur kommen ... Wenn sie [wer?] Haupt- und Realschüler zusammenlegen, kom-men 50 Prozent der hauptschulempfohlenen Jugendlichen zum Realschulabschluss, ohne dass das Realschülerniveau irgendwie beeinträchtigt wird“ (loc. cit.). Solche unwissenschaftlichen Aussagen sind durch nichts belegt (vgl. Pkt. 2 und 3 oben). Sie demaskieren aber den ideolo-gischen Charakter vieler gegenwärtiger Bildungsdiskussionsrunden, wobei sich allerdings selten so klar wie in diesem Fall der Urheber der zitierten Äußerungen selbst disqualifiziert.

Kurt A. Heller is a research professor at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich. He is believed to be one of Germany's leading intelligence researchers. So I think we should include his opinion here. Or did you think I presented a biased view of his opinion. If so, of course that must be straightened out. The one thing that does not have a proof now is the claim that the German media often claim that there is no correlation between IQ and schloastic success. We have that Focus quote, but right now we do not have a quote of another magazine claiming the same. I included this, because I believed it to be without controversy (reading German magazines or listening to the radio, I heard it so often), but will look for another proof, if we need one.-- Greatgreenwhale (talk) 20:22, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I did notice the Focus and Heller quotes. I used {{Cite quote}}, not {{Citation needed}}, for the Focus quotation to indicate that there were no citation details for the Focus article. It would appear that the quotation comes from Heller's book, where, it seems to me, it is attributed incorrectly or imprecisely to the author of the Focus article, whereas the author seems in fact to be quoting someone.The correct citation would seem to be

• "Hauptschule als Auslaufmodell". Focus Online (in German). 2008-08-07. Retrieved 2010-02-21. Nach Ansicht von Erziehungswissenschaftler Struck ist die Hauptschule 'mittlerweile der wichtigste Faktor, um in die Kriminalitätsspirale einzusteigen'. Kinder würden nicht nach Intelligenz auf die Schulen aufgeteilt, sondern nach ihrer Familiensituation: 'Arme Kinder landen völlig unabhängig von ihrer Intelligenz überwiegend in der Hauptschule, während dumme Kinder reicher Eltern mit viel Nachhilfe durchaus zum Abitur kommen.'

I have not added the citation details to the article, because the introductory sentence may need changing in order to avoid endorsing Heller's attribution. Even according to Heller, the claim comes from an educationalist, not from the magazine, which might justify reconsidering the implication in this section that the media are making outlandish claims that are refuted by the professionals.

I have, personally, not seen claims by the media that there was no correlation between IQ and scholastic success, though I have seen claims that other factors (such as migrant background) play a role.

I also flagged the quotations "outlandish" and "lacks scientific proof" because no citation details are given. If they are also quotes from Heller, he should be cited. If this is the case, I am not very happy about Heller's view being presented as that of "German psychologists" without qualification.--Boson (talk) 07:49, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I realize I have shown sloppy workmanship here and I am sorry.

I had not read the Focus article and reading the Heller article, where it was quoted, I assumed that the educationalist was the author of the Focus article. So it seems I was wrong.

As for the media making claims that IQ was not important for scholastic performance, I will search for them. I am pretty sure I will find them, because I have read that a gazillion of times or heard it on the TV and so. Here is an example of a claim I have heard on the media very often. This is an interview with Marianne Demmer of the teachers union GEW: Die Erfahrung zeigt, dass man von der Intelligenz oder vom Lernpotenzial her oft gar nicht unterscheiden kann, ob das ein Hauptschüler, Realschüler oder Gymnasiast ist. PISA und andere Studien verdeutlichen, dass ungefähr 70 Prozent der Schüler über dasselbe Lernpotenzial verfügen. Diese scharfe Unterscheidung zwischen Hauptschule, Realschule und Gymnasium kann man also eigentlich gar nicht treffen.

Translation:Experience teaches us that looking at IQ or potential it is not clear if a student is a Hauptschule-student, Realschule-student or Gymnasium-student. PISA and other students show 70 percent of students have the same potential. The differentation between Hauptschule, Realschule and Gymnasium makes no sense.

May be I draw to much conclusions from my personal experience, but before I did study psychology I believed that there was not whatsoever conclusion between IQ and scholastic performance and that 70 percent persons had the same IQ, because I has heard it over and over again... and some of my fellow students believed the same to be true. Now at college we were told different and were anstonished. So a fellow student asked a former professor of ours, Detlef Rost, if this what we heard was not true and he said those claims made in the public discussion were outlandish myths and lacked scientific proof. Outlandish myths by the way was one of his favourite words. Lately Rost has wrote a book called "IQ - Myth and Facts" to comment on the many opinions put forward in public discussion he believes to be myth. Unfortunately I have not read it yet, but I heard he has included a capitle about myth and facts about IQ and scholastic performance.

It is by the way not true that 70 percent of persons have the same IQ, but 70 (or 68 to be totally accurate) percent of persons have an IQ in the "average range", but still IQ matters in that case because it does matter if your IQ happens to be 86 or 114.

though I have seen claims that other factors (such as migrant background) play a role. There is some evidence pointing to the fact that if other factors are controlled for does not play a role at all. A study for example found: "After controlling for individual students’ competencies, e.g. their cognitive abilities, the common assumption that children with migration backgrounds are disadvantaged could not be confirmed."http://www.springerlink.com/content/114t3835u84308pr/fulltext.pdf?page=1

The claim that the claims made by the media are outlandish was made by my professor Detlef Rost, but I cannot profide proof for this. I only found a little piece on Rost commenting on "outlandish myths" in the public discussion about gifetedness and grades: he said that while in the public opinion the outlandish myth that gifted students had bad grades was put forward, in fact 90 percent of gifted students had very good grades "http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/0,1518,617440,00.html"

Also Heller said the discussion going on was "ideologic in nature" and that the claims "lack scientific proof", that "lacking scientific proof" is a direct quote from Heller.-- Greatgreenwhale (talk) 14:34, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't want to argue the substantive issues here, but one must be careful not to over-generalize what the sources say or incorporate original research by drawing conclusions from what the sources report. The cited source above about migrant children seems to deal only with the teacher's recommendation at the end of fourth grade, not, for instance, performance at age 15 (like PISA). The abstract does not state, but seems to imply or accept, that migrant children do worse than non-migrant children if you do not adjust for cognitive abilities (IQ?). If you have access to the full article, I would be interested to know whether IQ tests were conducted in the children's mother tongue and were designed to avoid cultural bias. --Boson (talk) 00:39, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

This is a really controversial issue and I am feeling a little bit unconfortble discussing it.Just for the record I want you to know I do have an immigration background; I am Eurasian (have one European and one Asian parent) and I feel that I have been discriminated against a few times, for example I graduated from primary school with a nearly perfect GPA, yet was not accepted by several prep schools which accepted white friends which did have much poorer grades; I have noticed that persons, who graduated from the same prep school I did, but had worse grades than I did get into much better colleges. A friend of mine, who is white, and me wanted to study the same subject. We both did not graduate in the top 20, so we were not directly accepted. He had slighlty worse grades than I had we both applied for the same colleges. He was accepted by all of them, I was accepted by none... but on the other hand prep schools and colleges do not look only for grades but also for character (personal qualities) and may be there was something about me that made me a bad fit. If I could really proof: "This prep school or that college does discriminate against Asians or persons with immigrant background", I could sue them... and I surely would do that. So if I would have any proof that there is a prep school were Asians faced a higher admissions bar or were expelled for poor performance whiles white of similar poor performance were not expelled, I surely would sue that school. Our law would me allow to do so, because racial discrimination is unlawful in our country... but so far I heard a lot of people claim that they have been discriminated against by prep school or college, but I have never met a person, who could proof it

As for PISA a lot of people hold the opinion that immigrants were discriminated against, but according to what I read from the PISA consortium: "Diese Unterschiede in den Chancen der Bildungsbeteiligung verschwinden, wenn man die Lesekompetenz der Schülerinnen und Schüler kontrolliert. Vergleicht man also Jugendliche, die ähnlich gut lesen können, ist keine Benachteiligung von Kindern aus Zuwanderungsfamilien mehr zu beobachten." http://www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/en/pisa/newweb/Rueckmeldung_Teil_I.pdf (page 17) So if reading ability is controlled for, immigrants were not found to be discriminated against. Yet the more a test is focussed on reading the smaller is the ethnic German - German with immigrant backgroung gap in performance. The performance gap is the widest on test that require the least reading. So just controlling for reading ability does favour immigrants - yet still not discrimination could be found.

As for the above mentioned study unfortunately I do not know which IQ-test was used. I could try to find the study in our library if you would be very interested in it. I know that typically a so called "culture fair" language free test is used. That is considered the gold standard for a study like this. I also know that on culture fair tests of general cognitive ability the children of immigrants typically underperform other German children by one standard deviation. A scientist called Lenzen from the FU Berlin has done work about this. He believes the performance gap to be non-genetic in origin and thinks I can be reduced by applying compensatory measures (enrichment).Of course the fact that immigrant children score one standard deviation on those tests does not mean that all immigrant children underperform ethnic Germans. In fact it does mean that there are a lot of immigrant children who do better on those tests, than the average ethnic German kid does. Of course it can also be agrued that culture fair test are not possible because all of the test might be biased. As a person, who does have an immigrant background, I would love a scientist come up with proof that the children of immigrants are just as intelligent as other Germans, but so far unfortunately I have seen no-body coming up with that proof. I have heard a lot of politicians made claims immigrant children are just as smart as the children of natives, I have seen a lot of magazines writing this... but really the facts I know point in the opposite direction (at least if you agree that tests of cognitive functioning are a valid measure of smartness)

Anyway... this topic is highly controversial... I do not consider myself to be an expert on it. In fact I turned away from the field of studying anything that has to do with IQ, because I have seen how some of our professor got affronted for doing research or even received threathning letters... so why after all do I write here about it? Well, I am not even sure. May be because I think the ones who still do reasearch on cognitive ability in Germany show they do have guts and I salute that... and if it is discovered that a group I am a member of has a low median of cognitive abilty I want to hear this fact. I do not want it to be clouded. Of course I also want to hear the critics of IQ.

Anyway. I am, not sure if that immigrant - non immigrant gap in cognitive abilty should be mentioned in this article. I did not mention it so far. I think we could mention it, but do not have to. I think IQ should be mentioned in this article as it is a very important factor for scholastic achievement... and it sould also be mentioned that Heller is not pleased with what the Focus writes. ::::I think you are totally right that the paragraph was to much original research and it should be changed. Do you have an idea, how to change it?

If you want to, we could also include some criticism of IQ into the paragraph.

I hope I did not write to much-- Greatgreenwhale (talk) 12:33, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

So... I just wanted add I think that not talking about this topic to my mind does more harm than good... because we always expect the universities and the prep schools to change, but they may not even be the problem. I think it was better if the German public spend more time discussing compensatory education or compensatory assistance or enrichment or however you want to call it instead of discussing quotas... Oh... well. I guess I am using this as a discussion forum and I am sorry. So I will stop this now.-- Greatgreenwhale (talk) 14:14, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

"Focus" is a rather tabloid level magazine. It is not exactly scientific. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.117.83 (talk) 15:00, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

The focus magazine was cited to proof that "the media have claimed that there was no correlation between IQ and scholastic success in Germany". Of course the Focus magazine is not a scientific magazine and that claim is also incorrect. Amelang and Bartussek, which is a standard textbook in psychology reads: Die Untersuchungen zum Vergleich von Punktwerten in Intelligenztest mit Kriterien des schulischen Erfolgs [liefern] die höchsten Übereinstimmungen in der psychologischen Diagnostik überhaupt. (sorry, my english is not good enough to give a literal translation, but what it says is that the correlation is very strong.) Manfred Amelang, Dieter Bartussek. 2001. Differentielle Psychologie und Persönlichkeitsforschung. 5. Auflag. Kohlhammer; p. 248 ff.:-- Greatgreenwhale (talk) 09:21, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Catholicism

According to this article, church and state are separated and German schools are pretty much secular. However, according to the article Reichskonkordat, the Hitler agreement between Germany and the Pope is still legally and constitutionally in force in Germany and the following provisions are therefore law: "Catholic religion is taught in school (article 21) and teachers for Catholic religion can be employed only with the approval of the bishop (article 22)." Can anyone clarify? Thank you 86.176.184.100 (talk) 08:09, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Private schools are possible and heavily subsidized by the state in Germany as long as they provide the state mandated curriculum and submit to state supervision/regulation. Both large churches - as well as a plethora of other groups - run such schools. Additionally, even state run schools are not secular the way many Americans seem to use that word - my own public gymnasium (looking back at several hundred years of tradition) used to offer a weekly and mandatory (for catholics) school mass. Also, confessional religions class (both protestant and catholic) is standard part of the curriculum. Wefa (talk) 00:30, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

more recently, alternatively to religions class several states have been offering "ethics" for folks not attending either protestant or catholic religions class. There has been quite some talk about offering islamic religions class as well, but the various islamic organizations have been too fragmented to provide a stable partner for any state to organize general islamic religions courses. The basic idea goes back to the prussia, which preferred state co-controlled religions classes to the "sunday school" model commmon in the US. Wefa (talk) 00:37, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

P.S. FWIW, the "mandatory mass" thing is not in contradiction to the article. Minors could waive mass attendance by certification from their parents. Adult students could do so on their own. Of course, in a good catholic environment, parents rarely wrote such waivers :-) Wefa (talk) 00:50, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Quota

Sorry, what I wrote about quotas was wrong. Only comprehensives can establish quotas and according to what I read in the German Wikipedia it is common for comprehensives to do so. German Wikipedia does not have a source, but I'll try to provide one soon.-- Greatgreenwhale (talk) 13:18, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Overview of the German school system

Has something gone wrong with the formatting here? There is no punctuation and it's strange to see a link in the middle of an article. Mikeo1938 (talk) 21:32, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Performance of German youngsters in 2006 PISA axaminazion

This article states that German youngsters ranked 13th at the 2006 PISA examination, while the article on PISA states they ranked 8th. Which is true now?-- Greatgreenwhale (talk) 10:28, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I also query the statement that German Gymnasia have been found by PISA to be by far the highest achieving schools in the world. This is so far removed from anything I have ever read about German schooling, including in PISA reports that I am quite baffled as to why this comment was included. Your ref is not to PISA (ref 11). Can you please link to PISA reports to confirm this? If you cannot, this comment is an unsubstantiated quality assessment which should be removed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.191.214.242 (talk) 19:40, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

This is a statement, which I heard on several occasions, for example it is always put forward by Josef Kraus of the German teachers Union. I think I am going to write to him and ask him, where he found it.-- Greatgreenwhale (talk) 10:11, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Why has this the statement about the Gymnasium being the best school form in the world been deleted. According to the source Josef Kraus, "bedauerte, daß all diese Fakten in der gesellschaftlichen Analyse der PISA-Untersuchung nicht auftauchen, ebenso wenig der Hinweis darauf, daß das deutsche Gymnasium die beste Schulform der Welt sei". So the German Gymnasium is the best school form in the world according to PISA, which has not been mentioned in discussing the results. That is one opinion he stated on several other occasions. The other sources says: "Conservatives prized the success of the Gymnasium, for them the finest school form in the world – indeed, it is by far the number one in the PISA league table. But what they prefer to forget is that this success came at the cost of a catastrophe in the Hauptschulen."

Another thing that has been changed: the text now reads: "Recent PISA student assessments demonstrated serious weaknesses in German pupils' performance. In the test of 43 countries in the year 2000[6], Germany ranked 21st in reading and 20th in both mathematics and the natural sciences, prompting calls for reform.[7] In 2006, German schoolchildren improved their position compared to previous years, being ranked (statistically) significantly above average (rank 13) in science skills and statistically not significantly above or below average in mathematical skills (rank 20) and reading skills (rank 18).

I do not think ranking statistically about the average in science and not ranking statistically below or above average in math and reading shows "serious weaknesses"

If you had a child and the teacher would tell you he was above average in sciene and doing average in math and reading, would you tell him that his scholastic performance "showed serious weaknesses"?.-- Greatgreenwhale (talk) 07:56, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

I put a direct quotation by Wiadra into the article. I think this should by uncontroversial since it is a direct quotation.

I added the statement that a number of scientist disputed the PISA findings, because otherwise the text will give the wrong impression that "some teachers representatatives" were rthe only ones that did.-- Greatgreenwhale (talk) 08:40, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Look at Reference 69

The subject and information of this section was taken from a document published by the Nymphenburger Realschule in München, DE. I have visited this school and can state that this is ONLY criteria for this specific school. Can anyone else argue this point? If so, please provide another source. But unless another source can be found that supports this information for all Realschulen in Germany, I vote that it be taken down since it applies to only one Realschule. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thomasc0928 (talk • contribs) 12:48, 19 October 2010 (UTC)