The cleaning lady's son should have the same educational opportunities as the professor's daughter. This is the stated goal of German education policy, which was set in stone ten years ago: "Advancement through education" promised Chancellor Angela Merkel and the heads of state at the Dresden Education Summit on October 22, 2008. What has become of it?
The balance is sobering. Children who come from difficult social backgrounds or from families with a migrant background still have significantly worse chances in the German education system than others. This is the result of an analysis by the education researcher Klaus Klemm on behalf of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB).
His conclusion: "Germany's day care centers and schools do not break the division of society into winners and losers, but solidify them." Even in the day care center inequalities of children from different social life situations were initiated.
"Staff shortages in schools and nurseries, lack of facilities for inclusive learning or the integration of refugees - when scarcity prevails or a system does not work, it hits the group of the most vulnerable the strongest," says Klemm. He reevaluated data on individual stations in the education system - and checked for equal opportunities from nursery to university. The results:
The differences begin even before school
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Kitakinder (archive picture)
Crib: Only 33, 6 percent of children under the age of three had a daycare place in Germany in 2017/18. At the education summit, on the other hand, a quota of 35 percent had been promised - target clearly missed. Whether a toddler is cared for in the daycare or not, also depends heavily on whether in which family it grows up.
For families in which the Hauptschulabschluss is the highest, have 16.4 percent of under-three year olds a crib: If the highest degree, however, the (Fach-) Hochschulreife the rate is 37.7 percent . And if the childcare rate for immigrant children is only 20 percent , it is twice as high for non-immigrant families at 40 percent .
The differences showed that it was the children who received early childhood support only to a limited extent, who needed them especially strongly for their further education and life, says Klemm. "It would have to be the other way around." For the educational career of most of the children of academics families, a day nursery is much less important because they are well supported at home anyway. "
"In this way the course is set very differently very early on," says the researcher. The reasons are manifold. Partly they have to do with different cultural ideas of care. "But when kindergarten places are scarce anyway, a pair of academics often have the greater competence to secure one, as the immigrant woman from Afghanistan."
Kindergarten: Almost all children between the ages of three and six attend a kindergarten. However, the rate also depends on the origin: the proportion of children with a migrant background who went to a kindergarten is lower in some Länder than in children without a migration background.
Differences in school
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Student (icon)
Elementary school: If children are not sorted by performance and sent to separate schools, this is considered conducive to equal opportunities - as is the case nationwide at elementary schools. Deviated from this, however, by two developments, says Klemm.
First, the social segregation of residential areas , reflected in the student body. "In view of rising rental and real estate prices, this will be further sorted out, so that children from socially and socially disadvantaged families stay more often with them," says Klemm. To promote equity, this is just counterproductive.
Second, the lack of inclusion of some of the students. Nationwide, according to the study 4.3 percent of all students are still taught in separating special schools. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, this rate is even at 6.0 percent .
All-day school: The development of all-day schools is one of the most ambitious educational policy reform projects in Germany, which were initiated by the red-green coalition. "The program stands for more equal opportunities in education across Germany," it said. Last Union and SPD promised in the current coalition agreement a "legal entitlement to full-time care at primary schools".
In fact, however, Germany is far away from a nationwide supply. Currently, 40.1 percent of elementary students have such a place. The regional differences are large: in Hamburg, the rate is 98.2 percent, in Baden-Württemberg at 16.7 percent.
Klemm has calculated that if the legal claim is to be implemented, Germany would need an additional 102,000 teachers by the school year 2025/2026. But the job market has been swept clean, but not enough offspring is in sight. This shortage of skilled workers could be exacerbated depending on the social situation of the schools.
"Many well-trained teachers prefer to teach in middle-class neighborhoods," says Klemm. At the same time, lateral entrants in Berlin, for example, are already working above average at elementary schools, which are characterized by a socially disadvantaged student body.
Change to high school: In Germany, according to the study, there can be no question of equal opportunity: "In all federal states, the transition to high school is largely determined by social background." On average, a child from a family of academics with the same cognitive ability and the same reading competence has a 3.81 times greater chance of a high school recommendation than a child from a skilled worker family.
This "shift-specific inequality" contributes to inequality among 15-year-olds: 55 percent of children in a "high-class" family attend high school, but only 24.4 percent of working-class children. After all, the proportion of children with a migrant background has increased significantly, says Klemm.
Differences after school
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Universities: According to the study, high social selectivity continues when it comes to who is going to study - and who is not. Families in which at least one parent has an academic degree study 79 percent of children, from families in which both parents do not have a vocational degree, but only 12 percent.
Without graduation: The proportion of young people leaving the school system in Germany without a degree has recently risen again: from 5.9 (2016) to 6.5 percent (2017). But those who do not have at least a secondary school graduation, have little chance of a training place, it says in the study. Thus, 1.45 million young people between the ages of 20 and 29 stay in Germany without vocational training. The quota rose from 13.9 (2016) to 15 percent in 2017
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"He who ascends does not manage the valley"
A lot has been achieved in recent years, says Klemm. More and more young people would graduate from high school, study, the number of young people without graduation had decreased significantly. But: in terms of equity, Germany had not progressed far enough.
The problem with the current structures: "Those who are already privileged get more, the others fall down the back," says the researcher. Intelligent solutions are needed, but also more money. At the Dresden Education Summit, it was promised to use 10 percent of the gross domestic product for education. However, this was just 9.1 percent in 2015, the target year in which this appointment should be reached. It lacked 27.1 billion euros.