tschild, can you go into more detail about this school hierachy? It sounds interesting.
Think of me as tschild without the eloquence.
Germany has a 3-tier system of education. All children attend Grundschule, elementary school, from 1st to 4th grades. In the 4th grade, the determination is made, based on the teacher’s recommendation, which tier the child is suited for.
The top tier is Gymnasium, which is the academic track. It used to run from the 5th to the 13th grade, but there is a trend to contract it down to 8 years to match the pattern of other countries, so it generally ends after the 12th grade with the Abitur, which is the diploma needed to attend university. Charmingly, the politicians who made the decision to fit 9 years of education into 8 didn’t lay out exactly how that was to happen, so there’s been a bit of a scramble by the schools to make this happen without destroying the students through stress.
The second tier is Realschule, which runs from the 5th grade to the 10th, with the Realschulabschluss as the exit exam.
The third tier is Hauptschule, which runs from the 5th grade to the 9th, with the Hauptschulabschluss as the exit exam.
Those who attend Gymnasium, get their Abitur, and go on to university tend to be professionals and obviously better educated and on a higher class level than others. Those who attend Realschule tend to be blue collar professionals such as plumbers and carpenters and the like. Those who attend Hauptschule tend to end up as worker bees, with limited opportunities for advancement.
As you can imagine, there is a strong correlation between social class and academic success. Recent immigrants and kids who come from broken homes or poor families do not tend to hit the heights, and they get very little outside help to do so. There is intense pressure on kids not to fall below the academic level of their families.
It is possible to move from one tier to another based on performance, but it’s not terribly likely and happens more often downward than upward.
Anyone who wants to rip into a system that sorts 10-year-old children into the niches they will occupy for the rest of their lives is invited to sit down with me for a nice coffee and use all the foul language they desire.
There’s much to like and respect about Germany, but Germany =/= The Land of Opportunity.
I see. Thank you.