At the five-day international teachers’ conference in Berlin this week, which brought together around 1,800 educators from all over the world, education experts said Germany’s overregulated and under-funded schools needed a massive reform injection if they were to compete internationally…

The criticism is not new. In recent years, Germany’s education system has taken a severe battering after a string of PISA study results showed the country’s exalted schools to be trailing internationally.

In 2001, Germany ranked only 21st in reading skills and 20th in math and science among 31 countries assessed.

In March this year, the country was dealt another blow when UN special education envoy Vernor Munoz — amid protests by Germany’s federal education ministers — published a damning report saying the class-based three-tier school system was selective, discriminatory and undemocratic by shutting out children from immigrant and poorer backgrounds…

Whereas most other European countries have moved on to more inclusive school systems, Germany has essentially stuck to a three-tier structure which means that children are only 10 (or 12 in Berlin) when their high school is chosen…

Source: Deutsche Welle
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2707548,00.html