German American Partnership Program

The German American Partnership Program (GAPP for short) has been supported by the Pedagogical Exchange Service ( PAD ) at the Secretariat of the Standing Conference of Education Ministers of the Federal Republic of Germany ( KMK , Bonn ) in cooperation with the New York Goethe Institute since 1982 . It has developed into the largest partnership program for German and American schools.

In 2006, a total of 10,509 German and American schoolchildren took part in 755 GAPP school partnerships. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 , the number of participants is expected to rise again in the coming years .

Funding for school partnership programs in German-American student exchanges, which is of particular financial interest to American groups, is tied to various conditions. An existing partnership is to be continued continuously, whereby mutual visits should actually take place. Since the partnership programs primarily serve to promote German teaching in the USA , the program could initially only include schools that offer German teaching as a school subject. In the meantime, partnerships can be concluded or continued that put a "project instead of DaF" at the center of the exchange. A cultural exchange is thus possible, even if German is not taught as a foreign language at the American high school.

Secondary general and vocational schools on both sides of the Atlantic can participate in the program. The German-American Partnership Program offers the schools great help in realizing the exchange activities independently organized by the individual partner schools with further training measures and information material for the supervising teachers and with a financial grant.

The program not only promotes German lessons in the USA, but also the intercultural relationship between the two countries, the expansion of German students' foreign language skills and a sustainable improvement in relations between Americans and Germans.