German School System

                       The German Education System

In this part we would like to present the German education system and we hope you´ll enjoy this.....

 

First of all it can be said that most of the children start as usually at the age of 6 years and attend the elementary school called in German "Grundschule".

By the age of 10 years they are separated into 3 different kinds of what we will call secondary school.

Therefore, the children spent only the first 4 years together in the education system. After that , they and their family must decide the type of secondary school that they will attend but usually the parents decide the direction of the child's education because the children are to young to make this decision alone. Those are the five types of the education schools:

For the very young ones, from three to six years, there are Kindergardens, some are public, some are religious and others are private. Most of them are similar to some states all over the world most of them are convenient  during morning and after hours around 4 o´clock in the afternoon.

"Hauptschule" (secondary modern school) from year 5 to 9 in Germany some schools have also grade 10.This school is for the "manually" inclined they receive the same basic education as at the other secondary school, but at a slower pace and with "hands-on" experience.

"Realschule" ( Junior high school ) is from grade 5 to 10 like in most states as in Germay. This school leads to full time or part-time vacational training. It is possible for high achieving students to switch to the Gymnasium after they complete the grade 10.

"Gymnasium "(secondary school) Grade 5 to 13. This is the school for academically-minded children. It leads to University, or to a combination of academic courses and vocational credits. There are also different fields of education in the Gymnasium, mainly: math and natural science, classical languages and modern languages.

There is a fourth kind of secondary school in some states of Germany:
"Gesamtschule"Comprehensive school" is from grade 5 to 9 or 10. It is a combination of "Hauptschule" and "Realschule", and depending in which kind of school the children finished in grade 9 or in grade 10, he or she will receive either the Hauptschule or the Realschule certificate respectively. Every child in Germany must complete at least 9 years of education.

Another very important point: German children attend school only in the morning and therefore, there is no lunch and usually no after-school services either that means for most of them that they have to go to a sitter for the afternoon, if both parents have work.

But luckily over the past years things are changed in the education system and new laws  came out. So now in some Lands (states) school hours have been extended and the schools might be open from early in the morning to 5pm in the afternoon.

The school system is free at all levels, except at the University level, where a small fee depends of the University (about 200-500 euros per semester). Compare to some differents states is the college fee really acceptable in our country. See below for more details on Universities if you are interested to study in Germany.

German universities are exclusively academic institutions. Most students do not live in dormitories. Fraternities  or sororities are unimportant. University-sponsored social events are infrequent. Big-time sport programs do not exist. However, German students tend to be more politically activ.

Although German universities do not charge tuition, students need money for living expenses and books. Financial aid in the form of grants and loans is available under the Federal Training Promotion Act of (BAföG = Bundesausbildungsförderungsgesetz). However, as the BAföG has been scaled back in recent years, more and more students are forced to work part-time.

We hope that we could help your guys to learn a little bit about our school system ;)