On October 22 chancellor (prime minister) Angela Merkel summoned the premiers from all of Germanys 16 states for an ‘education summit in Dresden. Its vaunted aim was to transform Germany from a mediocre performer into a dazzling education republic. Yet the chancellors powers to achieve this goal are limited.Nobody thinks that Germany can afford mediocrity. If its performance on international tests improved from average to excellent, annual GDP growth would rise by 0.5-0.8 percentage points in the long run, says Ludger Wossmann, an economist at Ifo, a research institute in Munich. But the real stakes are higher. Almost half the children in some cities come from immigrant families; many speak mainly their mother tongue. In Germany parents social status plays a bigger role in childrens fates than in most other rich countries. As many as 8 percent of 15-17-year-olds are school dropouts; unemployment among them is three times higher than among university graduates. Yet, with Germanys population ageing, who will pay our pensions, if not the migrants? asks Jorg Drager, head of education at the Bertelsmann Foundation. Schools need to teach conduct as well as calculus, ensuring that minorities (and poor Germans) become fully functioning members of society. They are ill-equipped to do it. Germany is one of the few European countries that still divides children up at the age of ten. The cleverest go to gymnasien, the main route to university; the ordinary are sent to realschulen; and the dullards attend hauptschulen, often breeding-grounds for disaffection. Teaching methods have not changed since the days of the Kaiser, says Ties Rabe, a teacher and Social Democratic member of Hamburgs legislature. Most children leave school before lunch, which is awkward for families with two working parents. Germany has enough child-care places for just 17 percent of children under three. Ideology has often thwarted reform. Social Democrats and others on the left want students of different abilities to spend more time in the same school. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Ms. Merkels party, has long championed the three-tier system, partly because the tier-less alternative smelled to many of East German egalitarianism. Yet Merkel must keep her distance. Under Germanys federal system, education is mainly the responsibility of the states. Premiers have no intension of yielding authority. Tinkering with education is a risky political business. The CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, have been punished in state elections this year by parents angry over their handling of school reforms. Success, if it comes, is often apparent only after decades. But state governments are finding they have no choice. Dwindling numbers of children, especially in eastern Germany, troubled immigrants in the cities and a flight from hauptschulen are forcing them to rethink how they organise schools. Fortunately a demographic dividend from fewer children will free some €8-9 billion (Rs.50,400-56,700 crore) a year by 2015 to help pay for change. Hamburg is more than usually chaotic, with eight types of school at secondary level. A third of its children are from…
