A study confirms that Baden-Württemberg has not made any fundamental improvements in education. In a country comparison, the southwest remains in sixth place.
Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - According to a study, Baden-Württemberg remains average when it comes to educational effects. In the evaluation of the business-related "Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft" (INSM), the south-west again takes sixth place compared to the other federal states. The state has strengths in the area of dual training, digitization and a high proportion of university graduates in the fields of mathematics, computer science, natural sciences and technology (MINT). Weaknesses were seen in the area of foreign language teaching at vocational schools and in the small proportion of children who attend an all-day daycare facility.
According to the study, Saxony has the best education system for schoolchildren. This is followed by Bavaria and Thuringia in second and third place. The city state of Bremen brings up the rear behind North Rhine-Westphalia and Saxony-Anhalt. The study evaluates the extent to which "a federal state reduces educational poverty, contributes to securing skilled workers and promotes growth".
According to the authors, comparative work should be carried out at all schools "in order to systematically determine the extent of the learning loss". In addition, the funding infrastructure would have to be expanded and more teachers trained in the STEM subjects.
Strengths: The country does well when it comes to vocational training. At 93.6 percent, the highest success rate in the final exams of dual training of all countries was achieved in 2020. Digitization is also viewed positively. With 74 digitization patents in 2018 per 100,000 employees, the South West achieved the best value of all countries, according to the authors. Digital media are also used relatively frequently in school lessons.
Potential: A need for improvement is seen above all in internationalization and the funding infrastructure. The proportion of vocational school students who were taught foreign languages in 2020 was the second lowest at 20.8 percent, according to the study. The proportion of elementary school students with foreign language lessons is also below the national average. And the proportion of children between the ages of three and six in all-day care was the lowest in Germany at 24.3 percent in 2021.
The "Education Monitor" created by the German Economic Institute (IW) has been collected annually since 2004 on behalf of the INSM. The initiative describes itself as a non-partisan alliance of politics, business and science. It is financed by the employers' associations of the metal and electrical industry.
