The main news first: The deficits in German and math among children in the fourth grade are alarming. According to the new IQB study, every fifth person has problems reading, writing and arithmetic. Pandemic and school closures are not the only reasons for the downward trend.
Inadequate to insufficient - the results of the most recent IQB study could be summed up like this: The skills in German and mathematics have deteriorated dramatically among children in the fourth grade. On average, 18 to 30 percent of the students fail to meet the minimum standards. The most recent study shows that benefits have declined in almost all federal states, albeit to a significantly different extent.
Things are looking the most dramatic in Bremen, much better in Bavaria. In between, there are several abysses, also because the gap between socially disadvantaged children or children with an immigrant background and children from more privileged families has widened even further than in recent years. Corona plays a major role, as does gender, and also the origin and parental home of a child.
The study examined the extent to which fourth graders achieve the nationwide educational standards of the Conference of Ministers of Education (KMK) in the subjects German and mathematics. After 2011 and 2016, this is the third survey of this kind. Compared to the last data collection, the proportion of students who achieve the standard in the competence areas of reading, listening and spelling as well as mathematics has fallen by between eight and ten percent on average in 2021. At the same time, the proportion of children who fail the minimum standard at the end of fourth grade has increased by between six and eight percentage points in all areas.
The authors of the IQB education trends found that the people of Bremen lag behind the Bavarians by about one school year in learning time in reading and listening. In the case of orthography, the span covers about two thirds of a school year and in mathematics three quarters of a school year. Nationwide, there are definitely more schoolchildren than in 2016 who fail to meet the minimum standards at the end of the fourth grade.
The most dramatic decline is recorded in Berlin and Brandenburg. In Berlin, fourth graders in 2021 are less likely to reach the standard in all areas of competence, and they fail to meet the minimum standards more often than the national average. This puts Berlin right at the bottom next to Bremen in a country comparison. Pupils in Bavaria and Saxony do particularly well. Hamburg is also far ahead in some respects. As in 2016, Bremen brings up the rear in almost all areas of competence. In addition, fourth graders in Berlin, Brandenburg and North Rhine-Westphalia did significantly worse than five years earlier. The values here are well below the national average.
Of all countries, Hamburg has the greatest success curve in the IQB education trend. In 2011, Hamburg, together with Berlin and Bremen, was at the bottom of the list. In the meantime, the city-state has moved far up the list. "It cannot be determined with certainty whether this has anything to do with the strategy of data-supported school and lesson development, which the state has consistently established and developed over the past 20 years," says the survey, but it seems plausible.
With the help of questionnaires, the socio-economic status and the cultural capital of the parents were also recorded in the IQB education trend. From this, conclusions can be drawn as to the extent to which the children's competencies depend on the social status and educational background of the parents. According to the authors' analysis of the educational trend, children from families with a higher socio-economic status - unsurprisingly - achieve higher competence values on average.
According to the IQB education trend, children with an immigrant background show a significantly greater decline in competence than children without an immigrant background and whose mother tongue is German. Children of the first generation who were themselves born abroad are particularly affected. They show clear learning deficits in all areas of competence, but especially in the area of listening. This can be mainly attributed to the fact that children who speak a language other than German at home had less opportunity to develop their German-language skills, especially during the homeschooling period during the pandemic, said Petra Stanat, scientific director of the IQB at the presentation of the education trend.
Nationwide, the proportion of children with an immigrant background has increased by 14 percent since 2011. Overall, the proportion of fourth graders who always speak German at home was just under 62 percent in 2021. In 2016 it was 73 percent and five years earlier it was 84 percent.
The large decline in skills between 2016 and 2021 in all countries suggests that the restrictions in school operations caused by the pandemic also played a major role. That is why Petra Stanat, Director of the Institute for Quality Development in Education (IQB) at the Humboldt University in Berlin, spoke out in favor of securing linguistic and to focus on basic mathematical skills. However, she also said: "Temporary programs will probably not achieve a sustainable reduction in the proportion of pupils who do not achieve the minimum standards. For this we need coherent, long-term strategies with clear goals, concrete implementation plans and accompanying monitoring. "
The fourth graders tested between April and July 2021 were in third grade at the start of the pandemic and have experienced an average of about 32 weeks of distance or alternating learning over a year. This means that they did not have regular face-to-face classes for more than three quarters of a school year. The pandemic conditions then at least partly explain why, according to the IQB education trend, children in particular from socio-economically disadvantaged families and from families in which little German is spoken perform noticeably worse than the average. These children in particular usually had significantly worse learning conditions than children from more privileged families.
Old role models still seem to apply in 2022: girls have higher values in German in the areas of competence, compared to boys in mathematics. When it comes to spelling, girls have the greatest lead. This corresponds to the test results from 2016 and 2011 and is similar in all countries. According to the IQB education trend, girls have a higher self-concept - i.e. their assessment of themselves - in German and boys in mathematics. Girls are more anxious than boys when it comes to mathematics. Such differences cannot be found in German. For both sexes, however, the IQB education trend 2021 shows an overall lower self-concept than in 2016.
