Germany ranks low in PISA survey
There is no quality control for schools
Dieser Artikel in Deutsch
"Education is essential for economic success. Of key importance is the continuous development of internationally recognized tests to assess learning progress", is the formulation in the Charta passed at the global economic summit in Cologne in 1999. PISA 2000 is a step in this direction.
However, at a specialist conference run by the "Kultusministerkonferenz", the professor of education Dr. Helmut Fend pointed out that the various national surveys may not precisely reflect the statistical "basic totalities", that there may be distortions. But apart from this, it is clear: German school students are lagging behind their peers in other countries because they often start school later, at seven instead of six or five, and have not reached the same level as the "early birds" by the age of 15. Hence one of the main demands of educationalists following PISA 2000: in the spirit of equal opportunities every child should be entitled to free nursery education and then better primary schooling.
A second important finding: the "collective self-delusion of German teachers", according to Professor Jürgen Baumert, the head of the German survey. He substantiates this misjudgement with statistics: a quarter of all students are noticeably weak readers; but, in the previously held opinion of their teachers, 88 percent of this risk group were not weak. Obviously, German schools are lacking public quality control.
Above all, the national PISA study shows: weak achievement or, indeed, school failure is not essentially linked to nationality but to social background. Amongst the 9th year students (14-year-olds) in Brandenburg and Sachsen-Anhalt roughly every fourth one is poor at text and language comprehension although nearly all the parents were born in Germany. In Nordrhein-Westfalen there are now additional afternoon lessons for children needing such special tuition in the 5th and 6th year, i.e., for at least 10- and 11-year-olds, and in Baden-Württemberg there are whole classes receiving special tuition.
Starting with the coming school year Bayern is introducing "language- learning classes" for school beginners "with an insufficient knowledge of German" across its entire jurisdiction. At the school enrolment examination a "language ability diagnosis" will now take place which has been standardized by the "Staatsinstitut für Pädagogik und Bildungsforschung" (a national institute for educational theory and research).
Immediately after the summer holidays 2002 all the reception class children for the year 2003/4 in Hessen were interviewed by their future headmaster. If necessary, he or she recommended parents to send their son or daughter to a "pre-school course". If the child's use of the language was still not good enough to follow lessons when school began the teacher could withdraw the child from normal teaching for a year and send him or her to a mandatory language course.
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