Comment on the PISA study: Federalism is exacerbating the situation

The PISA results have shown for years: Germany prefers to invest in 16 education systems instead of equal opportunities for all children. It would be time to shake up educational funding.

It’s been 23 years since the first PISA study and somehow people have gotten used to the state of shock. New PISA results would only be shocking if Germany suddenly landed at the top. But don’t worry, that won’t happen anytime soon. On the one hand because of educational federalism and on the other hand because the same measures have been discussed for 23 years.

1st place in the PISA hit parade: The teaching profession must be more attractive and teachers must be better trained and trained more consistently. 2nd place: The social injustice that is now unfortunately so typical for Germany must be combated. There is hardly any other industrialized country where the chances of children and young people from poor families are worse than ours – that is particularly shameful.

It not only affects German families, but also refugee families. The refugees are not the core of the problem, otherwise Germany would have done better 23 years ago than it does today. But they make this problem even more visible.

Nobody wants to give away skills

And place number 3: As useful as German federalism is from a historical perspective, 16 different school systems are not particularly constructive. Federalism is hardly talked about because it is virtually impossible to abolish, but it still exacerbates the situation.

The federal states also do not come up with the idea of ​​voluntarily joining together to form something like larger education system associations. Bremen, Hamburg and Lower Saxony, for example, would be predestined for this – or Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate. But no one wants to give up skills.

At the Educational federalism shake

After the first PISA study, Germany took various measures to counteract it – and the results even got a little better. Unfortunately, most of the funding programs have since expired, such as the successful Sinus program, which was intended to increase interest in math. There are too few new programs.

Education experts are calling for all efforts to go to primary schools, because that is where the greatest leverage is to advance the basic skills of reading, arithmetic and writing.

One would like to add: Finally shake up educational federalism! Germany must invest in ensuring that all children who go to school here start life with the same opportunities. But it is better to invest money and energy in 16 competing education systems. PISA results have shown for 23 years that this doesn’t work.