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German School System in Big Trouble
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| Eugene |
http://www.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/0...k.ap/index.html
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -- It sounds like every child's dream: only 4 1/2 hours of school a day, no attendance taken, a free day if a teacher is sick, no punishment for playing hooky.
But this is no dream, as Germans have suddenly awakened to discover; it's the sorry state of their schools.
Germany's education system, like its economy, was once considered the pride of Europe. Worries about the stagnating economy have recently preoccupied Germans, and now they are realizing their schools are also in trouble.
Things have gotten so bad that not only parents are complaining. Even some high school students grumble that it's hard to take school seriously.
The system reaped praise after World War II for turning out fine shipbuilders and metalworkers. But such vocational training is out of step with the modern and more flexible needs of service-oriented or technical professions.
Also, a 1950s era assumption that mothers are home afternoons to help their children with homework has ceased to hold true as German women enter the work force. So instead of learning after school, many kids are goofing off or getting into trouble.
The real wake-up call came last year when an international test of 15-year-olds ranked Germany 21st out of 32 leading industrialized nations in reading, mathematics and science.
South Korea, Japan and Finland led in all three fields of the Program for International Student Assessment test in 2000, conducted every three years by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. U.S. students came in 15th.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government has responded by pledging $4 billion over the next five years to create all-day programs for elementary and secondary schools, improve teacher training and revamp classwork to encourage skills instead of rote learning.
Schroeder, whose wife, Doris Schroeder-Koepf, spends afternoons helping her 11-year-old daughter, Klara, with homework, wants 10,000 more schools to offer extra hours. Currently there are 1,800 -- just 6 percent of the total.
"We felt the children needed more time together with their teachers, more time to really concentrate on learning and encourage their development," Principal Waltraud Schrader said as she strode around the "all-day" building, a bright red concrete block in the schoolyard that houses a cafeteria, library, music and recreation rooms -- all rarities in German schools.
Only about a third of all teachers can assert themselves. So many kids skip school, but nobody cares, it creates a real 'so what?' atmosphere.
More typically, German pupils are home by early afternoon -- after three hours of classes in elementary school and less than five hours at middle and high schools.
German pupils are also tracked after fourth grade into secondary schools that determine whether they will learn a trade or vocation or go on to university.
"It is too difficult at the end of fourth grade to determine who should go into which (secondary) school," said Hans Bruegelmann, an education professor at the University in Siegen.
The reasons for the decline are many, but Germany's case is worse, say educators, because it took so long to realize the system was in trouble.
"In countries like Britain or the United States there is a tradition of monitoring education that allows them to see what works and what doesn't," said Cordula Artelt, an education expert with the Max Planck Institute in Germany. "We haven't done that. We have almost no indication of how well the system is working."
Once in college -- government funded and free of charge like lower schools -- students take an average of seven years to earn a degree. And only 32 percent of them actually do so, well below the average of 48 percent for industrialized nations.
Germany has relatively few private schools and they are expensive. Private universities are almost nonexistent.
Immigrant pupils
Particularly disadvantaged are the children of immigrants, who speak little or no German -- a problem reinforced by the PISA test results, which showed schools with the worst scores had the highest number of immigrant pupils.
But given the chance, Jonas, the son of Moroccan immigrants, has taken it. An avid reader and frequent visitor to the Meisterschule's library, he uses the after-school program to read more and get a teacher's help on his homework.
"All-day programs really help kids like him get ahead," said Schrader.
Huguette Morin-Hauser's two boys attend Frankfurt's Lessing High School, and tell a wholly different story.
"Only about a third of all teachers can assert themselves," says Patrick, her 15-year-old. "So many kids skip school, but nobody cares, it creates a real 'so what?' atmosphere."
Morin-Hauser said her younger son, Pascal, didn't start school until he was 7. Grading, considered bad for self-esteem, begins only in 3rd grade; there is only one parent-teacher conference a year, and Pascal's lack of motivation and occasionally aggressive behavior in elementary school went undetected for years, she said.
Ultimately, the problems in Germany's education system translate to young people poorly prepared for the job market, while companies complain they can't find qualified graduates.
Despite more than 11 percent unemployment, Germany has to attract highly trained immigrant workers to fill an estimated 100,000 high-tech jobs.
Education Minister Edelgard Bulmahn has visited U.S. universities to learn why they are so successful at attracting -- and keeping -- the world's brightest. According to her ministry, 14 percent of German doctoral grads leave for research posts at U.S. universities once they have their degrees. |
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| occrider |
Countries other than the US are experiencing problems??? :eyes: :eyespop:
C'mon man keep it real ... it's only interesting to discuss US problems :p |
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| Maaz |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Countries other than the US are experiencing problems??? :eyes: :eyespop:
C'mon man keep it real ... it's only interesting to discuss US problems :p |
lol |
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| DrummeRaver86 |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
C'mon man keep it real ... it's only interesting to discuss US problems :p |
Bah! Damn isolationists!!!:p |
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| Eugene |
So one day I decide to bring up something outside the US, and this is the response I get.
Little wonder they hate our guts :p |
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| DrummeRaver86 |
| When I was living in Austria I went to a private American school in Vienna, but I stil had some local freinds that attended Austrain public schools. The difference in knowledge base between the American school kids and the Austrians was rather surprising. As a whole, the Austrians are very intelligent people. But when you would compare them to the kids from my school, the difference was scary. |
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| TranceGiant |
| quote: | Originally posted by DrummeRaver86
When I was living in Austria I went to a private American school in Vienna, but I stil had some local freinds that attended Austrain public schools. The difference in knowledge base between the American school kids and the Austrians was rather surprising. As a whole, the Austrians are very intelligent people. But when you would compare them to the kids from my school, the difference was scary. |
You surely went to the "American International School" in Vienna, didn't you? Nice place, I took my SAT's in their cafeteria :haha: Didn't get your prargraph, though. Do you try to say that your school had a much higher level than the average Austrian school? I know for sure that the Austrian education system is amongst the world's best. Especially in higher classes due to the selection that occurs in the 5th grade (also depending on the grades u had in your first 4 years - yes it's cruel): Either you study for another four years, then start some kind of job. Or you go the "high" school where after 8 years you'll get your diploma. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by TranceGiant
You surely went to the "American International School" in Vienna, didn't you? |
VIS sucks!!! Damn brits and UN brats! |
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| LiquidX |
Sucks for Germany..
Anyways, if we are to talk about/compare Americans education system grr.. I guess we've discuss that before. :D |
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| DrummeRaver86 |
| quote: | Originally posted by TranceGiant
You surely went to the "American International School" in Vienna, didn't you? Nice place, I took my SAT's in their cafeteria :haha: Didn't get your prargraph, though. Do you try to say that your school had a much higher level than the average Austrian school? I know for sure that the Austrian education system is amongst the world's best. Especially in higher classes due to the selection that occurs in the 5th grade (also depending on the grades u had in your first 4 years - yes it's cruel): Either you study for another four years, then start some kind of job. Or you go the "high" school where after 8 years you'll get your diploma. |
hell yea I went to AIS. Like occrider said, VIS was full s. Anyway, what I meant in my other post was that it would seem that during a conversation with a native, it would seem that a kid from AIS would know more. Now, I'm only seeing it from one perspective. For all I know, I could have just been talkin with dumb kids. But like I said, when I think about Austrians, they are very educated and intelligent people. Practically everyone speaks English (except the bums in Schottentor U-bahn station:D ), and another language besides German. But, I found that the kids I knew weren't the brightest kids I've ever conversed with.
My only problem with Vienna is that the Viennese are SO stuck up and imperalistic. But when I used to go snowboarding in Tirol and Innsbrück, I found that the natives there were so friendly. |
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| dj adagnitio |
That article is really interesting. The only problem with it is that I don't really trust the source at all. CNN is very very American, and very hard to trust as a legitimate news source. I wouldn't be suprised if that article was in some way an attack on Germany as a result of their staunch oppostion to Americas war on Iraq.
The only other thing Id like to say is that when it says "Grading, considered bad for self-esteem, begins only in 3rd grade" it makes it sound like this is a bad thing. I was never graded on a thing until grade 7 and it was great. People I knew who went to my school, where there were no grades, learned just as much, if not more then kids at other schools. Kids also didnt have any of the worries about grades that kids that I knew who went to other schools did. And those worries are quite detremental to a lot of people. Another important thing to consider is that grades create a feeling of competition among children, which is not a good thing to be creating. |
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| occrider |
Right ... CNN made up the data 3 years ago in anticipation of bad blood ... and what better way to attack Germany than to make fun of their education system?
Well here's a bbc article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/...ion/3027215.stm
but then again the brits are our lackeys so I suppose we can't trust that source either. |
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