Top > World > 2006 > January > 2006-01-31

Private School Revolution in Germany

The Federal Republic of Germany has little tradition of private schools. In part because the German state set high standards for public schools and the constitution has strict guidelines governing private schools, Germans have tended to view education as a state responsibility and so eschewed the private school option. But an international study in 2000 ranked Germany`s prized educational system among the bottom third of industrial nations, and since then German parents have become much more open to private schools.

Since 1995, the number of pupils attending private schools in Germany has climbed 61 percent for primary schools and 25 percent overall, according to German government statistics. Although private schools still only account for only 6 percent of all schools in Germany, as many as a quarter of German parents would opt for a private school if one were available to them, says the president of the German Association of Private Schools in Frankfurt, Christian Lucas.

The private schools cropping up range in cost from a few dollars per month for some Catholic schools to several thousand dollars per month for international schools. "Although private-school students tend to do better than public-school students, that may have as much to do with their more privileged social backgrounds as it has to do with the quality of education they`re getting," adds Wilfried Bos, director of the Institute of School Development Research at Dortmund University.