Talk:Education in Germany
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[edit] Comparison with US found to be unhelpful
The section on universities seems to be almost entirely a comparison with the United States - this doesn't help for those of us who want to understand the German HE system and ...um... don't come from the US (yes, we exist, shocking I know).
[edit] Article on universities
Universities want moving to List of universities in Germany, which is actually a shorter list atm, which is very silly. Morwen 19:31, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)
[edit] College information
Details about college taken (with curtesy) from www.stormarnschule.de ly 14:30, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)
[edit] New Bachelor degrees
Can we have a word about the new bachelor degrees - unfortuantely I have no info on hand... THANKS. Michael
[edit] Scholarships
of course there are scholarships in Germany, but they are not as frequent as in the US, as education is still free and therefore you can finance yourself by working -another reasons why it takes so long to get a degree --Yak 13:49, Feb 19, 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Gymnasium, Fachochschule and Kollegschulen
What is the difference between Gymnasium, Fachochschule and Kollegschulen? Clear definition of Kollegschulen would be great...Thanks, Jo
- I can't tell you much about Kollegschulen, but a Gymnasium is sort-of equivalent to a high school (plus perhaps 2 years of college), while a Fachhochschule rather corresponds to a college, maybe also to college + grad school (M. Sc.) -- while "real" universities rather provide a broad theoretical background, which (afaik) does not exist in this way in the US education until you do a PhD.
- If you let me know where in the text you'd like a better explanation/differentiation between Gymnasium and Fachhochschule, I'll be glad to do it -- but being german myself, those things are so familiar that I probably don't see missing parts in the article.
- best, --Pinguin.tk 22:09, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)
[edit] chosen languages
"Achievements in the subjects... the chosen language, mostly English, French or Latin"
English is no chosen language but a normal subject every student has to achieve (in all states as far as I know) -Phil-
- Unless they changed rules in that aspect since my Gymnasium time, students have to take a first foreign language in 5th grade and a second one in 7th grade. A third one is usually offered as a choice, starting in (I think) 10th grade. In most schools, there is no choice of the first language, and in most schools the first language is English. However, this was not universally so even in state schools - some Saarland schools close to the French border offered French, and I think some schools in the former GDR offered Russian as a first language. For the second language, the normal choice is between French or Latin. But again, some schools offer English (if not first foreign language), Old Greek, Russian, or Spanish. Some non-state schools have an even wider range. --Stephan Schulz 01:16, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
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- As far as I know Saarland is the only state with French as fisrt language. I still go to school and where I come from - in Thuringia - there are some differences between the schools. The Gymnasium I used to go to taught English as first language from Year 5 on, and in Year 7 you had to choose French, Russian or Latin as second language. Now I go to another Gymnasium, which offers two languages from Year 5 on (English and French) but also one language in Year 5 (English, French or Russian) as well as from Year 7 on. In Year 9 you can take Latin, and from Year 11 on you can start with Latin, French or Russian. --slg 17:03, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- At my Gymnasium in Baden-Würtemberg we could chose between English and Latin as the first language. A friend of mine picked Greek as his second language and never had English at school. Markus Schmaus 19:24, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
You can pick French as a first language in Rhineland-Palatinate as well. (And Latin if you go to a school specializing on old languages). But you have to take English either as your first or second foreign language. The range of second foreign languages available is a lot broader than mentioned so far, not only at private schools. In Mecklanburg-Vorpommern Swedish is very common, Danish in Schleswig-Holstein. Russian in many former GDR federal states. You find Dutch in areas close to the Dutch border and Polish close to that border. Many schools offer Spanish, some Italian or even Japanese. And yes, Stephan, they have changed the rules: now everybody starts learning their first foreign language (English or French) in year 3 (year 1 in some federal states), starting with the second one in year 6 (at least in some states). sophie —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.72.117.183 (talk) 00:06, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Template:Education infobox
I created a template, Template:Education infobox which can give a quick at a glance demographics table for education articles. See its implementation at Education in the United States and feel free to help improve the template.--naryathegreat | (talk) 01:00, August 7, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] University rankings
The ranking of german universities by the Shanghai Jiaotong University is pretty pointless. This ranking was mainly research focused (even biased towards life siences). Typically high-class research in Germany is not carried out directly in the universities, but rather in the institutes of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. Most institutes cooperate with local universities on research and training but are not included into to ranking. I suggest to remove the comparison or explain the ranking in a separate article.
- I think the focus on a specific ranking usually calls for a bias, and there should be a more comprehensive overview of the German university ranking among the world.
On the other hand, several of your claim are inaccurate conceptually: (a) A research-focused ranking is not "pointless" by itself, but rather points out the lack of Humboldt forschendes lernen (learning by research), which coincidentally was uncritically claimed to be the heritage of German universities. (b) The ranking is not "life science biased", but science biased – which is not necessarily a bad indicator, since this would too be a departure from the Humboldt vision, if German univers-ities only performs well in the humanities. (c) You might have noticed the similarly poor performance of German universities in teaching-focused rankings such as by "The Times".
Somebody might correct me, but my perception is that these rankings are taken more seriously by the German higher education administrators than maybe the comment above implies. — Ylai 11:34, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
The rankings are criticized by German universities and what the first commentator wrote is correct. What Ylai writes about Humboldt's forschendes lernen, however is incorrect - that doesn't have anything to do with scientific research of the kind that gets Nobel Prizes but with active learning based on the dialogue between an experiences professor and still inexperienced students. German universities do perform well in both sciences and humanities. Btw. it's not only the germans who criticize league tables (or rankings) based on - well, that's the point - arbitrarily selected data. You might have heard about similar protests from the US. One should always take those rankings with a pinch of salt and check which criteria they are based on (and whether that is what you're looking for). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.72.117.183 (talk) 00:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Timetables
Hey, these timetables are very wrong... I don´t know any school where Astronomy is theached...
- The timetables do not come from me and I cannot easily verify them completely, but e.g. in Bavaria, there are actually astronomy classes in schools. — Ylai 11:37, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] general
1. I work in a German Gymnasium (as a Fremdsprachenassistentin), and a lot of the (minor) things stated in this article just don't happen here. For instance, the students go around from room to room to a teacher, not the other way around. This is minor but I think the article may be well-served to point out early that the staying-in-one room model is more traditional. 2. I have cleaned up a little bit of the spelling & grammar, but honestly to me it seems that portions of this article were translated with the help of an online translator, or the like. This makes the article very difficult to read, and of course, reduces credibility. Also, with a community like Wikipedia, I feel that it's just not necessary. 3. I put the cleanup on here - not sure if I did it right - because this article is poorly written and confusing and I feel that some of the information is outdated or incorrect. I will try to fix up what I can, but I am no authority. Mirandom 07:24, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
- I don't know how universal this is, but at my school we have about 30-40% of our lessons in our own classroom. Although of course most of the lessons are in other, often subject-based rooms, this is not the case in all of the lessons and (I suppose) probably not at all schools either. FWTTVK (talk) 17:06, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
"The FH Diploma is roughly equivalent to a Bachelor degree."
That's just wrong. It may be true that some international companies are badly informed about the German Education System (maybe they read this article? ;)) But judging from time spent and courses involved the Dipl. (FH) more accurately matches the Master than the Bachelor. It lacks some courses in topics like "Interculutural Communications" but includes more courses in Higher Mathematics etc..
They implementation of the Bachelor/Master system is currently starting to gain momentum in Germany as more and more Universities and Fachhochschulen start do drop the traditional "Diplom". This process should get an own part in the article.
Considering personally experience and reports from people who had their degree beeing recognized in the US, a Magister oder a Diploma translates to a Master and not to a Bachelor in the US system. Thorben 10:55 19 August 2006
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"In four states (Saarland, Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and Rhineland-Palatinate), children have to attend two years (grades 5 and 6) in Orientierungsstufe ("orientation phase"), a special school type that follows the Grundschule, and is intended to help decide whether the student should be sent on to Hauptschule, Realschule or Gymnasium (or in any case Gesamtschule)." This is not correct for Rhimeland-Palatinate, the Orientierungsstufe is part of the various school types. Just transition between the schools is easier after those two years than it is later.
[edit] Editing Education in Germany (History)
Hi There, I am just tying to clear up some grammar issues, and attemting to make the article more readable. I have no knowledge of german education, so if someone could just make sure that everything is okay (I didn't really change any of the content but I sometimes had to guess at some meanings). If no one has any major obections I thought that I would do the rest of the article as well. Really interesting article, though! --DO11.10 23:48, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
- I moved the section "History" down, just to let the reader start with the as-is situation and the history later. MikeZ 13:47, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] POV problem, "correspondence" 13th year
The description of the German educational system has at some places a strong German POV, meaning a significantly lack of critical view and even reasoning of what is being claimed. The English Wikipedia really should not have a more problematic German POV that actually the German Wikipedia.
One POV problem is Humboldt's vision of university. Sure this is the German heritage of the university structure, but this does not mean heritage traslates into real, contemporary resemblance. Reading any set of current texts discussing German universities published in Germany (take e.g. Der Spiegel or Die Zeit), you will easily notice that nobody is claiming that the typical today's German university is that Humboldt-like.
As another POV problem, I move the following, I think really controversial sentence here:
- The german school system has an additional 13th year, which means that the first couple of years at a US college corresponds to the final years of a german school.
There are two problems:
- The 13th year is not common anymore. Many Länder have already or are going to abolish the 13th year.
- I am aware that this view of "correspondence" is shared by a lot of people in Germany, but I neither think the "correspondence" is plausible from another (e.g. the US) POV, nor is it correct.
Since the US college curriculum strongly varies in their depth, you cannot categorically compare the German 13th year to "the" US 1st year in college. For example, it is very far fetched to claim that any typical German Gymnasium would have 13th year courses comparable in depth to the freshman/sophomore humanities requirement of anyone of the Ivy League universities (maybe except languages). This is not even considering the majors.
Otherwise I would be glad if there could be some proof that the Lehrpläne of either of the Länder curriculum is on par with a US research university in the Carnegie classification (since these are the ones considered as "accredited" by the German Hochschulrektorenkonferenz). – Ylai 10:54, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
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- "[...]it is very far fetched to claim that any typical German Gymnasium would have 13th year courses comparable in depth to the freshman/sophomore humanities requirement of anyone of the Ivy League universities[...]" that may be, but really only any of the Ivy League universities; what percentage of US universities are Ivy League? FWTTVK (talk) 17:12, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Recognition of German exit exams in other countries?
Hi, how are the German exit exams recognized in other countries like the US? Example: The American High school diploma is seen as Mittlere Reife by the German institutions. This means you can't study with a High school diploma in Germany. Can one who has got Mittlere Reife (meaning he went to a Realschule or dropped school after tenth year of Gymnasium) take the SAT test and study in the USA?
Someone vandalized this page and wrote "OMG free college" in the article. I deleted that instance but there may be more instances that I didn't see.
- I tried to apply for UK universities with my German Abitur and that was easily possible. I think that also works in most other european countries, although individual universities might require that you have taken certain courses at school already. I don't know how it looks like if you have a lesser qualification such as Mittlere Reife, that should still be enough to apply for vocational training though. --Ewok 30 January 2007, 23:47
[edit] Grades
This articles makes many references to grade years. Are these terms actually used in the German education system? Even if they are it would be far more helpful to provide references to ages to help people from non-US countries understand how the system works. Dahliarose 15:25, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Overview - Imagesuggestion
I'd like to see an image like the following in this article: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Deutsches_Bildungssystem.png (from article de:Deutsches Bildungssystem). Maybe in a simplified version, the "Sekundarstufe II" is indeed a very complex system. Moreover is this image buggy. After a "Duale Ausbildung" you can directly move to a "Fachoberschule"; the image lacks this possibility. Additionally the "FOS 13" is sometimes called "BOS" for "Berufsoberschule" (roughly "upper vocational school"), f. e. in lower saxony. -- 91.4.77.141 00:15, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Schedule
It is not true that there are 5 minute breaks between the periods and I've never heard about that. Next time you should have a German write an article about Germany, not somebody else. Plus, There is no shuch thing like an enforcement of teachers smoking on school campus, neither is there one fore students
- I went to a German school for 13 years and in each of those years we had 5 minute breaks after 45 minute lessons, even for "double lessons" (90 minutes). So I don't think you got that right there. As for smoking: There are different regulations in different schools and Länder, ranging from a total ban of smoking for everyone (including teachers) to seperated smoking areas for students that are 16 and older (and sometimes for the teachers as well).--Ewok, 30 January 2007, 23:41 CET
We also don't have 5min breaks. The scheduling is different at almost every school. --A3li 09:59, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
There definitely are breaks of 5 minutes, as well as one with 15 and later one with 10 minutes in Schleswig-Holstein. It's probably varying between the Länder. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.7.141.166 (talk) 21:06, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm a german student, and 5 minutes breaks are in existence, at least in my school. Bu i think the problem here is that school can change such rules and make then fit to their purposes, as an example, my school right now things about changing it to 10 min break system without the 'big' breaks in between. But overall, the 5 min break can be seen as okay, most schools do have it. 66.19.235.141 (talk) 06:22, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Odd comment
,There are usually no security guards at German schools' Where on earth are there security guards in schools?! Surly most schools have a prefecting system, It seems odd to point out something like this as something that they specifically don't have! MHDIV ɪŋglɪʃnɜː(r)d(Suggestion?|wanna chat?) 12:09, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
- Seems like an US-biased notice to me, the US is the only country I heard of where there are security guards at schools. --Ewok 30 January 2007, 23:44 CET
[edit] Model timetables
These timetables are not very useful since school in Germany almost everywhere starts at 8.00 o' clock. Here would be times from my school: (some school do not have the 15 minute break after 6th period, but these times are much more acurate than the ones starting before 8 am... I never heard of a school starting before 8 and if it exists in Germany, than it's an exception! meta:User:louisana
| 8.00-8.45 |
| 8.50-9.35 |
| 9.55-10.40 |
| 10.45-11.30 |
| 11.50-12.35 |
| 12.40-13.25 |
| 13.40-14.25 |
| 14.30-15.15 |
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.205.4.73 (talk) 21:08, 15 March 2007 (UTC).
My gymnasium started at 7:45am every day. There definitely are differences between individual schools. TrACE666 13:57, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
At our gymnasium, class starts at 8am, which is imho definitely the standard. Also, I dont't like these table screenshot images. I think I'm going to convert them into real HTML tables. --A3li 09:59, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Most schools in my (very rural) region start at either 7:30 or 8:30. That's because there would not be enough school buses to carry students to school if every school started at the same time. But I have to agree that 8am is the norm for most schools. 217.229.162.174 20:18, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
In our "Kreis" school always starts at 7:50, at least for the 7 or 8 Gymnasien (I don't know about the other schools). FWTTVK (talk) 17:18, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Times are different at each school. Subjects taken are different in each federal state (plus it's up to the school whether they offer subjects like philosophy or psychology). It's just impossible to write something that is correct everywhere. In my town for example, we started at 8.00 in primary school but at 7.55 in secondary school (so we would finish in time for people to catch the bus). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.72.117.183 (talk) 00:33, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Private Schools
I am missing the "Private Schools" like Montessori Schulen or Waldorfschulen. They have a totally different structure than the "state schools"...
[edit] Security guards
- There are usually no security guards at German schools
This statement is made in such a way as to suggest that there is something remarkable about a country whose schools do not have security guards. Are there any countries (except ones where wars are currently being fought, such as Iraq) where schools do routinely employ security guards?--Oxonian2006 15:30, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Costs of studying
>> There are cheap rooms for students built by the Studentenwerk, an independent non-profit organization partially funded by the state. These may cost 150 EUR per month, without any food. Otherwise an apartment can cost 500 EUR, but often students share apartments, with 3 or 5 people per apartment.
This paragraph gives the impression, that a typical student pays 100-170 EUR for housing per month. Even though this amount depends heavily on the city you live in, this seems to be too low for me. Without having a good reference at hand (neither has the article) I would say, the costs are more 150-350 EUR for most cities.
>> other social services for students (40-100 EUR per semester) Again this depends on the university, but those cases I know, more than 100 EUR is common.
[edit] School T-Shirts
Is it not very rare that students by school T-Shirts and wear them? I never heard of that or saw that happening.
In Schleswig-Holstein it's quite common, at least, in the nothern part. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.7.141.166 (talk) 21:10, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
School T-Shirts are in my area absolutly not common, most students don't even have one plus there is no one who offers them. The School T-Shirts depend heavenly on school, area and tradition. But I think it's fair to say that there is not such a high amount on shirts like in American Highschools!66.19.235.141 (talk)
never seen anyone with a school t-shirt. but those finishing high school usually design their own school-leaving t-shirts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.72.117.183 (talk) 00:35, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Abitur marks
Article says, "for example a medical course could require an Abitur grade of between 1.0 to 1.5, approximately equivalent to a 3.9 - 4.5 GPA in the USA." The standard grade point system used in the US is a four-point system, so those numbers make no sense. Will someone please add more info about the grading system? That would not only help the article but also help avoid such silly comparison mistakes. Thanks.
There are two grade point systems used the same time. The first ist the traditional one with grades from 1(very good) to 6(insufficient). To figure out the success more detailed there is a point system with a maximum of 15 points (excellent) for each course you take. The point system is used in the 11th to 13th year. When you get your Abitur grade it contains a sum of points (counted and multiplied/divides by factors)* which is converted to a traditional grade. If all your courses are 14 points, you get a traditional grade of 1.0 . (It is even possible to get a 0.9 for example.
- there are some different rules to do this calculation
[edit] Scheine
If I understood it correctly, students in German universities must earn a certain number of certificates before they can become eligible to take their preliminary or final degree exams. It is not clear to me however how those certificates are earned. Does one only need to attend lectures/seminars, or is it also necessary to hand in homework assignments or lab reports and perhaps pass midterm exams ? Thanks for the information. 200.177.26.151 01:59, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
What one needs to do to earn a Schein depends on the course and the instructor. Quite common are: weekly homework or lab reports, weekly homework/lab reports plus a final exam, a final exam only, a research paper, a presentation and regular attendance, another project of some sort. Mauerblümchen 20:19, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Dual enrollment
In recent years many universities (right now about 50) have implemented dual enrollment programs (Frühstudium) that allow students at a Gymnasium to attend regular university courses for credit (earning Scheine). The first university was Köln in 2001. Could someone whose English is better than mine alter the paragraph beginning with "Yet another difference: while at Gymnasium a student cannot take courses that result in university credits." to reflect that development? Mauerblümchen 20:19, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Förderschule
There is too little about the Förderschule. (Schools of special education) The system of special education in Germany is heavily disputed. Germany is the only Western country where students with disabilities can be ordered by state authorities to attend a Förderschule. The vast majority of students with disabilities attend a Förderschule. Critics see this as an act of discrimination. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.234.122.44 (talk) 14:49, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] What happened?
Why were the ==Overview== and ==History== sections deleted? Why is this now a political statement about equality and racism instead of a basic, neutral article on the German educational system? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:48, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
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- I contributed to the part about inequality (which has been started by somebody else), while i did not delete anything. I think inequality of educational outcomes has received a lot of media-coverage in German in the last few years [1] so it should be covered here. However i do not think anybody was making a political statement here and nobody was talking about racism.
- I have had a look into the articles history [2] and it seems that the parts "overview" and "history" have been deleted by an IP. I have included it into the article again now. Seems that it is mostly unsourced and somebody really should provide sources... but living in Germany i know that most of the claims that have been made are true even if no source was provided.
- --Resilienzi (talk) 07:44, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
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- Thanks for finding that again. I appreciate it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:03, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
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