Education monitor: Saxony and Bavaria top, Bremen at the bottom scores in digitization

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First graders before starting school: How good is the German education system?

Photo: Moritz Frankenberg / picture alliance / dpa

Bremen can point to successes in digitization.

According to a new study, the students there work “relatively often every day with digital media in school lessons”, and the city-state on the Weser also trains more computer scientists than any other federal state.

But that is not enough to sufficiently reduce educational poverty, to contribute to growth and to secure the supply of skilled workers for the economy - this is the conclusion of the Institute of German Economics (IW) in Cologne in its new education monitor, which it publishes annually for the Initiative New Social Market Economy (INSM).

The INSM is a lobby organization and is funded by employers' associations in the metal and electrical industry.

Bremen comes last in the ranking of the federal states, as in previous years.

Saxony and Bavaria rank in the top positions – this is also nothing new – followed by Thuringia, Hamburg and Saarland.

Saxony-Anhalt slipped to the penultimate place, followed by Brandenburg and North Rhine-Westphalia tied for 13th place.

The economists evaluate 13 fields of action.

The 260-page study deals with school quality, childcare conditions and integration, but also with vocational training as well as universities and MINT, i.e. the fields of mathematics, computer science, natural sciences and technology.

The field of action digitization is new.

Significant deterioration in school quality

For each of the federal states, the study directors show strengths and weaknesses and make recommendations.

Bringing up the rear, Bremen, for example, is to introduce targeted funding programs in mathematics and reading.

No country has a greater proportion of fourth graders who fail to meet minimum standards in these subjects.

When it comes to digitization, however, Saxony, the leader, can perhaps even learn from Bremen.

The Saxon schools are “comparatively poorly equipped with WiFi”, and the childcare ratio at daycare centers and primary schools is below the national average.

more on the subject

• Deficits in German and math in fourth graders: "It will be difficult to catch up" by Swantje Unterberg

• Reading, arranging, demanding: What children really need in troubled schoolsBy Susmita Arp and Miriam Olbrisch

• Study at 111 elementary schools: fourth graders can read significantly worse than before the corona crisis by Silke Fokken

Overall, the team around educational economist Axel Plünnecke observed serious deterioration, especially in the field of school quality, measured in terms of student performance.

The corona pandemic also had a negative impact on educational equity in Germany.

Significantly more fourth graders are currently failing to meet the minimum standards in reading and mathematics.

Children and young people from economically weak families showed particularly large deficits here.

This was recently the result of a preliminary evaluation of the IQB education trend - alongside PISA and TIMSS one of the education studies that was included in the evaluation of the new education monitor.

Another indicator is the increasing number of young people leaving school without a qualification.

"The results are alarming," says INSM Managing Director Hubertus Pellengahr.

"Anyone who blames the regression on the pandemic is making it too easy for themselves." There is no improvement in sight.

"And that's also due to education policy, which doesn't face the problems." Those responsible worked with far too optimistic data.

Study director Plünnecke emphasizes how much the quality of the education system affects the economy and the prosperity of an entire economy.

The loss of competences of the pupils is decisive for how well they can be trained as specialists and later also for the innovative power of the country.

In the higher education landscape, the scientists look primarily at the natural sciences and technology subjects - i.e. those areas in which the shortage of skilled workers is currently particularly dramatic.

"In addition to the bottlenecks in professionally qualified specialists, the bottlenecks among MINT academics are also increasing, both currently and in the future," says the study.

"At best, we are observing stagnation in this field of activity," says economist Plünnecke.

Create 20,000 additional IT jobs

From their results, the study makers derive central recommendations for action that apply equally to all federal states: Schools should carry out comparative work in all years to record the learning gaps after Corona and to develop “post-qualification programs” on this basis.

In addition, schools should set up a high-quality all-day offer, where language support can take place in a targeted manner.

In addition to teachers, "IT experts, health advisors, school psychologists" should also be involved throughout the day in order to provide individual support to the students and to support the parents.

more on the subject

• Lots of money, little plan: The four reasons why the Corona catch-up program for schools could fizzle out An analysis by Miriam Olbrisch

• Precarious temporary contracts, bad pay: Germany scares its teachers away – and humiliates those who could help By Silke Fokken and Armin Himmelrath

• SPIEGEL Education Newsletter: Corona Autumn 3.0 - the emergency beginsBy Miriam Olbrisch

It is also important to further develop the areas of digitization and STEM in a targeted manner.

Among other things, the economists are calling for 20,000 additional IT jobs to be created in schools in order to keep the technical equipment functional and future-proof and to support teachers.

Women should be inspired by a "cliché-free career and study orientation" for technical and scientific professions.

With the same skills, girls rated themselves worse than boys in the STEM subjects.

"Therefore, undistorted feedback from schools is of particular importance for career and study choices," says the study.

»Educational Economic Perspective«

According to INSM, the study expressly takes an "educational economics perspective." It is, for example, about the extent to which the respective education system contributes to securing skilled workers, but also about educational equity, i.e. access to education.

Results from comparative tests of students are compared, as well as statistical data, such as how much money a country spends per student, the ratio of teachers to students, and the proportion of younger teachers.

School and trainee dropout rates are also examined.

The focus is on "what contribution the education system makes to securing prosperity, creating opportunities for advancement for the individual and ensuring participation," write the study directors.

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