‘The school system in Germany is still quite unequal’

We spoke with a prominent German education researcher about schools in Germany, and how they can be improved, especially for kids from diverse backgrounds.

Germany continues to grow more diverse, and that’s especially apparent in the classroom: nearly a third of all Schüler (students) have a migrant background, meaning that either they, or at least one of their parents, come from another country.

As the new school year begins, we sat down with Dr. Aileen Edele, professor at Berlin’s Humboldt University, who specialises in how children and adolescents from migrant families learn best.

She explained what makes Germany’s school system unique, why many schools still struggle to support students who don’t speak German at home, and how early education in kindergarten can already shape future success.

GR: Can you give a little bit of an overview of the German education system, and what makes it unique from a global perspective?

AE: One difference is that children start school a bit later than in most other countries: we usually start at the age of six or seven, whereas many countries start at five years.

But the most striking feature of the German school system is that in most Bundesländer (federal states), Germans only attend junior school (Grundschule) for the first four years jointly and then they are tracked. This system used to be labelled a three-track system consisting of Gymnasium, the academic track, Realschule, the intermediate track, and Hauptschule, the lowest track.

We also used to teach the majority of children with special educational needs separately, which actually made it a four-track system.

But recently, the structure has been changing. In Germany, education is very much shaped by the politics and policies of the respective Bundesland. And there have been states like Berlin which changed this three-track system into a two-track system, with an integrated school system [of general ‘Gesamtschulen’, similar to in countries like the US or Australia] which can also lead to a university entrance degree in addition to the Gymnasium.

Photo by Nathan Cima on Unsplash

GR: Can you talk about the advantages and disadvantages of the tracking system, especially when it comes to students from migrant backgrounds?

AE: We know that the German school system is still quite unequal. In Germany, whether a student succeeds in school is highly linked to the social economic background and migration history of their family. This used to be the case, and it still is the case.

People often conclude that that’s due to the tracking in the school system. However, whether it really is caused by this tracking is a matter of debate among educational researchers. And it’s also hard to study, because of course you don’t have another Germany with a non-tracked school system to compare it with.

What was studied is what happens when, for example, the school system in Berlin was changed from a three-track system to a two-track system. There are studies that look at whether this changed inequality, and they found that no, it didn’t. Students’ family background still affects their chances of gaining an Abitur (university entrance degree) to the same degree as before that school reform.

I think it is safe to say that it matters more what actually happens in schools, rather than how they are actually organised.