The German Review

The German Review

Are German children getting dumber?

Yes. But why?

Jörg Luyken's avatar
Jörg Luyken
Oct 20, 2022
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The Story

German school children are getting stupider. That is a sad but incontrovertible fact.

A national assessment of primary school children, released last week, found an “unacceptable” slip in standards in reading, comprehension and mathematics since 2011.

German education is managed at the state level, meaning that the country has 16 different education authorities. But it doesn’t matter where you look, standards have fallen in every state and in every discipline.

Between the first report by the IQB (Institute for Quality Development in Education) in 2011 and the second in 2016 there was a clear slip in standards.

But between 2016 and now, standards have fallen off a cliff.

In writing, the national average slipped from a 2011 benchmark of 500 to 471 today. In listening the drop was from 500 to 456, in maths from 500 to 462.

In one example, a fifth of fourth-grade children couldn’t tell the difference in time between 10:50 a.m and 11:30 a.m.

States l…

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