A setback for German education reformers
Jul 22nd 2010 | berlin
“SCHOOL reform chaos?” asked a frowning satchel depicted on posters plastered around Hamburg. “No thank you.” The sorrowful satchel was the mascot of a citizens’ rebellion against a proposed school restructuring in the city-state. Voters rejected the plan in a referendum on July 18th. The stinging defeat for Hamburg’s government, a novel coalition between the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Green Party, has national consequences, as it may make the CDU-Green alliance a less appealing model for a future federal government. Ole von Beust, Hamburg’s mayor, announced his resignation before the result, saying he had done the job for long enough. He is the sixth CDU premier to leave office this year. Chancellor Angela Merkel, who leads the CDU, must now promote a new generation of leaders.
More important are the implications for schools. Hamburg’s plan was a bold attempt to correct a German practice that many think is both unjust and an obstacle to learning. In most states, after just four years of primary school children are streamed into one of several types of secondary school: clever kids attend Gymnasien, middling ones Realschulen and the slowest learners Hauptschulen, which are supposed to prepare them for trades. (A few go to Gesamtschulen, which serve all sorts.) Early selection may be one reason why the educational achievement of German children is linked more closely to that of their parents than in almost any other rich country. Children at the bottom often face low-wage drudgery or the dole.
One solution favoured by left-leaning politicians is to keep all children in the same classrooms for longer. Rich and poor pupils would benefit from the same resources; slow learners would profit from contact with quicker ones without holding them back. This was the thinking behind Hamburg’s proposal to extend primary school by two years. Christa Goetsch, the city’s Green education minister, devised the plan, which was backed by Mr von Beust and most opposition parties.
A furious middle-class reaction took them by surprise. Parents feared that Gymnasien, where the course of study had already been shortened from nine years to eight, would be crippled by the loss of two more. Voter turnout in some middle-class districts was double that in poorer ones.
Other reform-minded states will try to avoid Hamburg’s trauma. In North Rhine-Westphalia, the country’s most populous state, a new minority government of Social Democrats and Greens favours keeping children together in school for up to ten years. But the decision will be left to municipalities. Tiny Saarland proposes a timid one-year extension of primary school, but may fail to enact the needed constitutional change.
There are other ways to make education more equitable. Hamburg’s other reform was not blocked by the referendum. It will consolidate secondary schools into two types: Gymnasien, and “neighbourhood schools”, which will also offer the university entrance test. Berlin has similar plans. Shunned by parents and weakened by demographic decline, Hauptschulen are dying a natural death. Hamburg was a setback for reform, not a final defeat.
The Economist
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