Education
After the Pisa debacle: head of the education committee calls for a special MPK
Kai Gehring (Alliance 90/The Greens) speaks in the Bundestag. photo
© Christophe Gateau/dpa
The shock is still in our bones: In the new PISA test, Germany received worse results than ever before. What needs to be done now?
After the collapse of German school performance in the The PISA study calls for fundamental consequences and rapid political action. The chairman of the Bundestag Education Committee, Kai Gehring, suggested on Wednesday that a special Prime Minister’s Conference of the states should be called. There is also discussion about the orientation of the federal and state governments’ planned starting opportunities program for hotspot schools.
In the study published on Tuesday, German 15/16-year-olds achieved the weakest performance values in reading, mathematics and natural sciences that were ever measured for Germany as part of Pisa. The study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) compares industrialized countries.
“The worst educational results in 23 years are more than just another alarm sign: they mark a highly urgent need for action,” said Green MP Gehring to the German Press Agency in Berlin. “In view of the Pisa diagnosis, the renovation backlog in our schools running into the high tens of billions and the blatant shortage of teachers, a special MPK must take place now. This could be well prepared and scheduled for the first quarter of 2024.”
The federal government is concerned
The Prime Minister all too often calls for such a special MPK when the billions are comparatively smaller – for example for the accommodation of refugees. “Education needs the highest priority and is a national responsibility because it lays the foundation for our economy and innovation as well as for securing skilled workers,” said the politician. “The states must not continue to sit out the education crisis, otherwise their cultural sovereignty and prioritization will be more than doubtful.”
The federal government called the PISA results worrying. There is a strong connection between social background and educational success, said government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit. He pointed out that education is a matter for the states, but the federal government supports and helps. The goal is to make progress again.
The SPD chairwoman Saskia Esken reiterated her call for the planned start-up opportunities program to be expanded. Far too many students left school without a qualification, she told the Germany editorial network (Wednesday). “The federal government’s starting opportunities program, which is scheduled to start in the fall, is a good approach, but it needs to be much broader.” The program is intended to provide 4,000 schools in difficult situations with special state funding worth billions in the coming years.
Criticism from the educational researcher
However, educational researcher Olaf Köller takes a critical view of this. “We have to make sure that we bring evidence-based programs into schools that really help young people who have German as a second language to learn German as an educational language so well that they gain understanding in the subjects. This will be one of the central tasks be,” said Köller from the Kiel Leibniz Institute for the Pedagogy of Natural Sciences and Mathematics to the dpa. “The federal government’s Starting Opportunities program will not be able to solve this, because it involves a lot of school construction or school renovation and also school social work.” But it’s not really about promoting basic skills.
The PISA results will probably also be a topic at the Conference of Ministers of Education on Thursday and Friday. In addition, a report on teacher recruitment and teacher training will be presented.