Equation without a solution

School education in Germany leaves even Germans themselves asking questions

Worshippers of everything foreign — hopefully their numbers have significantly dwindled in Belarus lately — sometimes say breathlessly that education abroad has achieved unattainable heights. Let us dispel this misconception. What do foreign media write in the lead-up to the new academic year?

All hands on deck!  

The German magazine Der Spiegel characterises the educational realities in its country in this way, “Schools demonstrate how unnecessary politicians are in the field of education: dilapidated buildings, overcrowded classrooms, cancelled lessons, and teachers who are hardly subject to any control. Some are lazy, others are overworked — both adds to the problems that are increasing year by year in German schools.” By the start of the new academic year, the situation in German schools has slightly improved thanks to the hiring of teachers without pedagogical qualifications.  
According to the Central German Broadcasting website (www.mdr.de), 8.6 percent of all school teachers in Germany have no relevant qualifications. Despite the high demand for the profession, the number of graduates from teacher training universities in Germany continues to decline. In 2022, 28,700 individuals passed their final exams, which is a 10 percent decrease compared to a decade ago. It is far from certain that all these specialists will work in the field.
Yet, German politicians, detached from the realities of education, are convinced that by hiring teachers without relevant qualifications, they are promoting practical and life-oriented preparation for children as they transition from school. This is exactly what Der Spiegel has written. Could it be the Germans’ offbeat approach to career guidance? A waiter will train schoolchildren in their trade, while a cleaner will share the secrets of their profession...

Illiterate and untrained

Despite the fact that teaching in a German school is generally well-paid, it is becoming increasingly difficult, meaningless, and even dangerous each year. Indeed, what is the value of teaching a schoolchild who often has little understanding of where they are and what is happening? 

The Saarland regional news portal (www.sr.de) has reported that the number of first-graders with insufficient knowledge of the German language in Saarland has increased nearly fourfold over the past eight years. In the spring of 2023, there were 2,257 first-grade students in Saarland who lacked sufficient German language skills to follow lessons. The number of such schoolchildren is growing. 

Meanwhile, the state government nonchalantly commented that compulsory school education was not linked to achieving minimum language or other standards. That sounds perplexing. After all, why do young Germans go to school then? They used to have a programme called German Language Before Starting School, which somehow taught preschoolers the language, but it has been scrapped now due to lack of budget. 

Murder is not improbable

Moreover, German schools can be quite a hazardous place. Here is what an online portal has written, “Almost the first thing that parents and students are told when moving from elementary school to the next educational institution is where to turn in case of mobbing or other conflicts.” Cyberbullying is not the worst thing that can happen to a schoolchild or even a teacher in a German school.
A fight broke out in a German language class between two students. One of the participants in the altercation pulled out a knife, previously used by the students while doing a task at an art class. “He lunged at the student and started shouting that he was going to kill him,” a teacher recounted to journalists. The man stepped between the teenagers, but the attacker was in such a state that he could not be stopped. The teacher was injured.
This may not be an everyday occurrence in a German school, yet the level of violence towards teachers and students is genuinely on the rise. Psychologist Albert Zimmermann, in an interview with the Focus news magazine, urged teachers ‘to be more attentive and to take seriously in elementary school situations when deviations appear in the behaviour of students’.

Weird trainings

What is certainly going well in German schools is the education of children regarding gender and sexual diversity. As reported by the Bild newspaper in 2024, “LGBT co-ordinators will be introduced in German schools. They will advise teachers in this area and organise ‘special conferences and in-school training sessions’. Each educator will receive an additional 10 hours a week for this.” This will be at the expense of other, less important subjects, such as the German language, mathematics, and biology.

“Age-appropriate information and awareness-raising can reduce prejudices and biases, which may help to strengthen the mental health of children and young people of non-traditional orientations,” Bild has quoted the statements of German politicians and public figures who are keen on the idea of introducing children to gender perversions as early as possible.

Interestingly, similar issues, albeit with a local flavour, are also present in school education across other European countries. But where are the innovative programmes and high-tech equipment that fans of foreign education speak of so confidently? Apparently, they reside in the same place as everything else — in the imagination of those for whom the term ‘foreign’ still remains synonymous with ‘better’.

Word for word

Motive for a crime

Recently, Germany was shocked by the murder of a 12-year-old schoolgirl near the town of Freudenberg, in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The killers turned out to be her friends, aged 12 and 13. Prosecutor Mario Mannweiler told Focus, “What may be a motive for a child to commit a deed may not necessarily be apparent to an adult. Presumably, emotions could play a role in the terrible murder of a schoolgirl, investigators said.” 
Whether it was emotions or not, no one intends to punish the underage killers — they are too young. They will be supported in coping with the psychological trauma inflicted upon them by… the act of murder. Does anyone truly fail to grasp why attending a German school can be fatally dangerous?

By Alena Krasovskaya