SCHOOL OPTIONS FOR GERMAN-SPEAKING EXPAT-FAMILIES
Not only families from Germany but also those from a Swiss-German or Austrian background require educational options in the German language during their stay abroad. Although these families may appreciate International or National Schools in their host country (and not least for the benefits of social interaction), they feel under pressure to remain in touch with the educational system of their home country. The question how their children may once again be integrated into their home schools upon the family’s return from abroad is omnipresent.
1. The background
The State Takes Care of Everyone
German parents’ particular concern with the re-integration of their children in German schools results from a school system that some may consider peculiar.
The German school system is highly differentiated and grants students a considerable freedom to choose between a wide range of subjects and school types. On the other hand, the system is closely supervised by state authorities and subject to detailed regulations.
The German state offers free education to everybody on German territory and school attendance is compulsory between the age of 6 and the age of 15 or, in some states, 16 (grades 1 to 9 or 10). Schooling on a completely individual basis is still illegal. This also applies to all kinds of home schooling, even though these may be based on excellent material developed by educational experts. Between the age of 6 and 16, a student has to attend lessons at a school.
Each of the 16 Federal States of Germany publishes an official curriculum, the guidelines for school authorities at all levels. Thus, also German expatriates rely on this curriculum. The constant concern with curricular issues, so common among parents and providers in the US, is less pronounced in Germany.
Intended Benefits
The benefits of such intense regulations may be described as follows:
(1) A well-grounded education becomes accessible to everybody on German territory, even to people who otherwise are not much concerned with school.
(2) A lowering of educational standards is prevented by means of constant control by academic experts and well-trained teachers.
(3) Students benefit from equal standards at all school levels at every school, no matter whether at home or abroad.
Of course, the nature of these aims is a highly idealistic one. Reality is no longer able to live up to these standards. What remains is more or less a rigid structure of regulations.
2. The German school structure
(1) PRIMARY STAGE (Grundschule)
comprises grades 1 to 4. (Also Preschool available, but not obligatory in all places.)
(2) LOWER SECONDARY STAGE (Sekundarstufe I)
grade 5 to grade 10.
School attendance is compulsory up to grade 9, in some of the federal states up to grade 10 (age 16).
The core subjects are German, Mathematics, Geography, Biology and Religion, Music, Arts and Sports. At the beginning of this stage (grade 5), a first compulsory foreign language is introduced, usually English, French or Latin. A second foreign language is introduced in grade 7, again usually Latin, French or English, less often Russian, Italian or Spanish. From grade 9, students have the option to learn a third foreign language or, instead, to specialize in Mathematics and Science.
Additional subjects such as History, Physics and Chemistry are introduced from grade 7 onwards.
(3) UPPER SECONDARY STAGE (SEKUNDARSTUFE II)
comprises grades 11 to 12/13 and leads towards the Abitur towards the end of grade 12/13.
This stage grants students more freedom in that they are able to combine a variety of subjects according to their personal preference.
However, the overall structure of grades 12 and 13 is again determined by official regulations; subject options may only be chosen within the following three subject areas:
1. Language - Literature - Arts
2. Social Sciences
3. Mathematics - Science - Technology
Each of the three areas must be represented by at least one subject in the final records of the Upper Secondary Stage. In addition, subjects such as Religion and Sports are also compulsory.
Assessment takes place on a continual basis throughout the Upper Secondary Stage and is concluded by the considerable Abitur examinations at the end of grade 13.
The German Upper Secondary Stage covers an area considerably wider than that covered by most European school systems. This is true with regard to the number of school years, the number of compulsory subjects and the extent of in-depth-studies. Compared to the American system, the German Gymnasium covers a considerable amount of college study in the U.S.
The Abitur’s legal status is unique among different national school graduations. While most countries grant access to higher education only by a pass in the entrance exam selection, a German Abitur-graduate may claim right of access to whatever kind of university course he chooses. (On today’s crowded campuses, this is true only under the condition that sufficient places are available. But at least all applicants are considered, if only on a waiting list.)
3. German educational options available for expatriates
Due to the structure of school conditions at home, societies and boards sending staff overseas first look out for an option of choosing a home country type of school abroad. This has been possible in several variations:
(1) GERMAN OR SWISS INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS (Deutsche Auslandsschule/ Schweizer Schule)
You can find a list of Deutsche Auslandsschulen online:
Auslandsschulverzeichnis published by Zentralstelle für das Auslandsschulwesen, Barbarastr. 1, 50735 Köln, Tel: 0049 228 99358 8653, www.auslandsschulwesen.de
Komitee fuer Schweizerschulen im Ausland, Alpenstrasse 26, 3006 Bern 16, Tel: O041 31 356 6120, E-Mail: office@educationsuisse.ch, www.educationsuisse.ch
(2) GERMAN SECTIONS with English or American Schools
Examples: Murray Christian School, Pakistan; Amazon Valley Academy, Belèm, Brazil
Nearly complete integration of German-speaking students takes place while teaching them in some core subjects in the German language (mostly German as 1rst language / history / geography etc.).
(3) SMALL GERMAN MK-SCHOOL (Missionary Kids)
with dormitory on the field.
(4) GERMAN CORRESPONDENCE INSTRUCTION
not to be mistaken as the general home schooling setup, is an option for flexibility in time and space, allows for individual access or termination as well as it gives room for individual pace. In fortnightly intervals the student keeps connected to a personal German or Swiss teacher who keeps responsible for the constant link to the inland school system. (See next chapter!)
(5) FOREIGN SCHOOL SYSTEM + ADDITIONAL CORRESPONDENCE COURSE IN GERMAN
combines international or local school with additional correspondence course for German language.
4. Deutsche Fernschule - German Correspondence School
Deutsche Fernschule (DF), Schanzenfeldstraße 14, 35578 WETZLAR, Germany, Tel: 0049 6441 921 892, E-Mail: df@deutsche-fernschule.de, Web: www.deutsche-fernschule.de
In 1971, German missionary societies have supported the private initiative for setting up the Deutsche Fernschule e.V. (German Correspondence School). The target area was the mission field, the target group missionary kids.
But within a short time this school had become a constant support for all parts of the German, Swiss and Austrian service organizations and business people who were sending staff overseas. The official Schweizer Lehrerverband in a joint action with the Swiss Foreign Office decided in 1983 to drop their own plans for a Swiss program and to join and recommend Deutsche Fernschule.
Inside Germany home schooling is illegal. On the other hand German authorities have been very much in favor of German Correspondence School for use outside the country as these programs are totally in line with official German curricula, and their setup for learning at home is closely tutored by fully-trained German and Swiss teachers.
In the German language, correspondence courses of Deutsche Fernschule are the only primary stage program available, and this program is fully licensed and approved by experts of the State Authority for Distance Education (ZFU) in Cologne.
The courses have been designed for private home-instruction, but also family cooperatives as well as small school groups can build on the totally worked-out lessons. The initial idea was to go beyond what other correspondence programs in the world offer. Parents should no longer receive merely a manual or a guidebook combined with piles of textbooks. When and how would they really find time to design their own lessons for daily learning? How could they find out about the proper didactics and methodology? With younger children crying all around them?
Here is where DF-programs gain their full bearing as they are fully elaborated, lesson by lesson, throughout the school year. Textbooks and materials for experiments belong to an extra kit, for the child gets engaged in a ”learning by doing”. No extra ”homework” is necessary.
One major factor in this learning system:
About 30 fully qualified teachers in Germany and Switzerland maintain a correspondence-friendship-relationship personally with every single child every two weeks. They do the correction and the marking of tests, but most of all they build the bridge between child / parent and the inland school scene at home. Most of all, distance can thereby be partly replaced through ”nearness”, personal attention, every fortnight.
In this line, different from general home schooling practice, parents are not meant to be the ”teacher”. The course is child-centered! Parent will act as reading-aid, dialog partner, playmate and, of course, parent organize the day by day procedure of learning, supporting a quiet, friendly, comfortable setting for learning.
This DF-philosophy, together with the DF-instructional design, has relieved so many parents from strain, headaches and confusion, indeed from home schooling chaos.
DF-Service offered:
Primary Stage school lessons:
Preschool 1 & 2 and grades 1 to 4
Subjects: Deutsch, Mathematik, Sachunterricht, Englisch, Kunst
German Language Basics:
grades 1 to 6 print or online, designed as additional language course while attending international or local school
from grade 7 on please contact:
Institut für Lernsysteme (ILS)
Courses with numerous subjects per grade
Doberaner Weg 18-22, 22143 Hamburg, Tel: 0049 40 675 700, E-Mail: kursinfo@ils.de
5. German education in addition to American system
If any real day school of West-European or North American type is available, or a local school with comparable level of education, school attendance for the students should perhaps be recommended. But if the school in your place of living is drifting too far from what the German school system demands at a certain grade, a genuine German education via Correpondence Courses would be an alternative.
Many families with children attending an American type of school find it helpful to book the supplementary single subject correspondence course in mother-tongue German. This is not a hobby-course! The student is rather working on a program that stands for a fully identical course of learning in this subject as any home-country school would offer it, including final assessment and records in the subject to step on into the next higher grade.
In this combination - International or National day school plus single subject German - a family can at least set up a basis for mastering German which helps to master the communicative part of school re-entry.
Parents should not satisfy themselves with the statement: ”We speak only German at home”. This type of communication does not relate the vocabulary that is necessary for classroom training in the German language and literature. Therefore a profound German language training via correspondence course has proved to be very helpful on re-entry.
6. Re-entry into home country education
How have families dealt with the re-entry challenges? What has been successful?
Incompatibility between educational systems world wide, at least with regard to some subject areas, to learning methods and learning styles, have never made parents feel very optimistic about re-entry. Some parents do not bother very much about it and would even take it as a chance for the child if there were a grade to be repeated. After all, school entrance age overseas is often 5 years, even 4 years in Ireland and the Netherlands, so that the child might just fit into the proper age group on re-entry into Germany.
Of course, the longer children stay inside a foreign school system the harder is the way back into Germany. Beyond grade 6 school programs become increasingly different from the German one.
In any case, no matter how long a student remains in a foreign school system, during the process of learning he or she should look out for that selection of subject options that keeps him or her close to the options offered in the school of their home town in Germany. It may be, for example, that the student chooses a course in Russian in his North American type of school in , let us say, Bishkek. So the German student would be able to prove his knowledge of two foreign languages that are compulsory from grade 7 in his German school at home. But what if, on the day of re-entry, his local Gymnasium in Germany cannot offer a course in Russian?
This example applies even more to students of grade 10 onwards who plan to stay in a foreign school system during the period of the ”Gymnasiale Oberstufe” (age 16 to 19/20). We have indeed experience with students who could only continue high school education inside Germany in an International school in the English language. But such a course opened up for them higher education only outside Germany.
So it is worth looking ahead and planning as much as one can do for a reasonable school career of one’s children during the period of living abroad.
7. Graduation and University Entrance
As pointed out with the Re-entry-chapter there is hardly any compatibility between North American school systems and Central European: Different profiles of the educational ”output” are the results of differences of time spent at school, curricular specialties, option of subject study, and at last the character of final exams.
In Germany, High School graduation from the U.S. is generally considered equivalent to ”Mittlere Reife” (graduation from Technical Modern School after 10 years). With case we experienced the bad acceptance of High school graduation from Faith Academy Manila with Stuttgart school authorities: They pleaded for a ranking like ”Hauptschulabschluss”.
Canadian graduation as received form Black Forest Academy has one advantage: it is recognized as a more valuable foreign final exam and enables the student to build on it an extra German course of one more year in Hamburg that leads to university access.
Parents or students who are interested should contact:
Behörde für Schule und Berufsbildung/ Schulinformationszentrum, Hamburger Straße 125a, 22083 Hamburg, Tel: 0049 40 42899 2211, www.hamburg.de/bsb/siz
Studienkolleg Hamburg, Holstenglacis 6, 20355 Hamburg, Tel: 0049 40 42898 6211, www.studienkolleg-hamburg.de
Staatl. Schulamt Hessen, Darmstadt (Beratung zur Anerkennung ausländischer Bildungsnachweise) , Tel: 0049 6151 3682 487, E-Mail: bildungsnachweise.ssa.
darmstadt@kultus.hessen.de, www.schulaemter.hessen.de
(Similar information points in every Federal State of Germany.)
They can tell you what types of foreign Highschool graduation based on 12 years of learning is recognized as a sufficient basis for finishing German school attendance by one more year, including Abitur exam, so that the former expatriate student gains general access to German university education.
Again one should keep in mind: The closer to the German system a school’s or a student´s self-designed course program is the more is the student likely to get the results recognized for a German graduation (see chapter 6: Re-entry).
One address in Germany should be contacted with all questions about the German consideration of foreign school processes:
Kultusministerkonferenz der Laender der BR Deutschland, Zentralstelle für ausländisches Bildungswesen (ZAB)
Graurheindorfer Straße 157, 53117 Bonn, E-Mail: zabservice@kmk.org, www.kmk.org/zab
For Switzerland:
Bundesamt fuer Kultur, Hallwystrasse 15, 3005 Bern, Switzerland Tel: 0041 58 462 92 66, www.bak.admin.ch
Originally compiled by Guenter Schwesig/ Deutsche Fernschule e.V.