Germany’s economic success presents something of an educational puzzle. On the one hand, its schools turn out a workforce capable of producing goods that have made its companies export champions of the world. On the other, the academic achievements of its schoolchildren, measured in international tests, look mediocre. The reading abilities of German 15-year-olds, according to Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) studies published by the OECD, are below the average for rich countries. In a world where brainpower matters more and more, how does German business thrive?
The answer is that a combination of schooling and apprenticeship has proved a reliable supplier and shaper of the sort of labour German businesses need to make goods of high quality, even as similar jobs have disappeared in other rich economies. At the age of ten or 11, about 40 percent of children are selected to go to a Gymnasium. Many of them go to university eventually. Most who do not, and many of those at less academic schools, go ultimately into specialised training for one of around 350 trades, from gardening to glass-blowing.
Students divide their time between classrooms and the factory floor, acquiring considerable knowledge on the job. According to German industry spokespersons, this makes them expert and flexible. Because German jobs are fairly secure, many employees invest time in learning new skills. Companies invest in teaching them too — for example, to use computers to design parts — because their workers are not likely to quit. Moreover, basic education seems to be getting better. The first PISA study, published in 2001, in which German children did poorly, caused much national soul-searching. But Germany’s standing in the OECD rankings has improved a great deal in the past few years.
Even so, the system has flaws. Some worry, for example, that stronger general education is needed to equip young Germans to change trades should demand for their specific expertise dry up. A bigger concern is that early selection fails children from poor and immigrant families, who are likeliest to attend the least academic schools and miss out on apprenticeships.
Some think this may eventually cost the economy. Ludger Wössmann, of the Ifo Institute at Munich University, reckons that the best long-run predictor of a country’s economic growth rate is the performance of its children in comparative tests in science, maths and so forth. Germany’s scores, he points out, do not bode well.
(Excerpted and adapted from The Economist)