Education Policy in Germany

Education courses in the German education system

Education policy is policy that aims at the design, legitimation and administration of the education system .

Education Policy in Germany

In Germany, education policy includes the administration of schools and universities, which is essentially carried out at the state level by the ministries of education . Educational goals are increasingly being defined in pre-school care. However, responsibility for pre-school care has so far typically not been assigned to the ministries of education, but to the ministries of social affairs.

According to the Basic Law , education policy is a matter for the federal states ( cultural sovereignty ). This has led to the school systems in Germany differing greatly between the federal states. The regular ministerial conferences try to regulate the most important things in a uniform manner. This includes, among other things, the duration of the school holidays and their timing as well as the division of a school year. There are differences with regard to the curriculum , the final exams at the grammar school ( see also: Central Abitur ), the number of school years ( Abitur after 12 or 13 years ), the range of subjects , the types of school ( see also: comprehensive school ) and the transition from primary school to one secondary school ( see also: orientation level ). However, there are also isolated differences within a federal state: For example, in most of Baden-Württemberg's first foreign language is English, only along the border with France is French.

The situation is similar with the universities : There are differences here, especially with regard to financing and possible tuition fees . In this area, higher education policy, attempts by the federal government to curtail the educational sovereignty of the states have been prohibited in recent years, not least by the Federal Constitutional Court (see e.g. junior professorship ). It is also controversial which role the European Union and its organs are allowed to play in questions of education policy and how international agreements (e.g. in the Council of Europe ) or agreements (e.g. through the Bologna Process ) affect politics of the countries react.

Since the federal states are responsible for the payment of teachers and professors as well as the construction of the school buildings, these areas often also reflect the current financial situation of the state.

Up until the federalism reform that came into force on September 1, 2006 , the Federal- State Commission for Education Planning and Research Promotion also coordinated the education policies of the 16 federal states in addition to the Conference of Ministers of Education .

The Bertelsmann Foundation exerts considerable influence on German educational policy through the Center for University Development, founded in 1994 .

In February 2006, the UN Education Commissioner Vernor Muñoz criticized the lack of equal opportunities in German education policy , saying that education in Germany is more dependent on social origin than in most other developed countries. Muñoz also criticized federalism in education policy.

literature

Thomas Barth, Oliver Schöller: The call of the donors. Bertelsmann and the privatization of education policy. In: Sheets for German and international politics . Volume 50, No. 11, 2005, pp. 1339-1348.

Educational policy. (PDF; 3.2 MB). In: From Politics and Contemporary History . 45/2009.

Bernhard Muszynski: educational policy. In: G. Weißeno (Ed.): Lexicon of political education. Volume 1: Didactics and School. Schwalbach 1999, p. 35 ff.

Brigitte Schumann : pamphlet inclusion. What special education and educational policy hide. Debus Pedagogy, Frankfurt 2018, ISBN 978-3-95414-106-7 .

Jan Slodowicz: Education Policy and System Transformation in Central Europe . VDM, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-8364-2367-0 .

Ludwig von Friedeburg : Educational reform in Germany. History and Social Contradiction. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 3-518-28615-3 .

Olaf Zimmermann and Theo Geißler : The third pillar: Foreign cultural and educational policy (from politics & culture). German Cultural Council, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-947308-08-8 .