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Bildungskrise – PISA and the German Educational Crisis
Wolfgang Odendahl

	
  
	
  

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Abstract
After consistently bad results in every PISA test (Programme for International Student
Assessment) and an accompanying prediction of lack of skills in its future workforce, Germany
might be on track for losing out in international competition. Because of PISA’s overwhelming
marketing presence, its results are a major political influence. The OECD PISA committee’s
recommendations based on the results are challenging the fundamental structure of Germany’s
three-tiered educational system, aiming to eliminate its segregational effects on social classes.
In order to analyze PISA’s effects on German society from the angle of educational policy, thisstudy compares the goals stated in its documentation with its effects on the public perceptionof Germany’s future workforce. Three fields of research are considered: Education as a concept
for furthering society as a whole, assessment logic, and the educational system as a functional
module of the nation state. The study will show that PISA’s test results are valid in indicating
an urgent necessity to improve the teaching of basic skills, such as mathematics, reading, andwriting. The interpretations of and recommendations based on these results, however, arereflecting a solely utilitarian view of educational systems as supplying human resources forindustry.
Keywords: PISA; Germany; schools; educational policy; shift of values.

	
  
	
  

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Introduction
In 1997, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), anintergovernmental organization of industrialized countries, devised PISA (Programme forInternational Student Assessment) as a testing program to measure how schools around theworld prepared their pupils to act as contributing participants in a globalized economy. Its
results are designed to predict a nation’s economic success. They are presented as a side byside comparison with their competitors. The triennial surveys exclusively test 15-year-old
pupils in all participating nations and economies; they cover the three basic skills of reading,science, and mathematics applied to problem-solving and cognition in everyday life.
The results of the first PISA test, published in December 2001, were a shock for Germany. In
international comparison, Germany’s pupils ranked at 21 out of 32. This indicated that schools
didn’t provide adequate proficiency in basic life skills and that Germany might soon fall behindin the global race for economic well-being. What made the situation even worse was the factthat Germany continued to score badly in all four subsequent PISA tests. German media
revived the 1960s battle-cry of educational crisis or Bildungskrise.
This paper argues three major hypotheses. First, Germany’s educational system is undergoinga shift of values by substituting the traditional concept of Bildung – an untranslatable word
incorporating education, erudition, general learning, and self-formation – with training for
employability and job qualification. PISA has contributed to this shift of values by focusing on
the economic impact of schooling and by being the most publicly visible test program of its
kind. Second, PISA’s prominent role in the public debate about education is in large part due
to its huge marketing machinery, rather than objectifiable contributions. Third, PISA is not
actually measuring educational success, because it reduces education to its economicallyquantifiable output. This paper concludes that PISA does not take into account the social roleof schools and their duty towards educating citizens capable of furthering their personalfulfillment and – by extension – society.
What Makes PISA Successful?
Background
Development of the PISA assessment was commissioned in 1997 by the Organization for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It is a standardized assessment of 15-yearolds still in school and has been jointly developed by participating countries. Its goal is toprovide decision makers with quantifiable data for improving the output of human capital fromschools. Prior to commissioning the PISA studies, OECD published the basic framework it
would be based upon:
OECD countries are undergoing economic changes with important implications for theways in which human capital is acquired and used. Exploring these trends leads to an
analysis of the information and decisionmaking systems that shape human capitalacquisition and utilisation. In turn, this analysis of the methods and institutions ofhuman capital measurement, accounting and valuation, leads to the conclusion that
improvements to these systems are a key factor in helping a nation's firms to compete.
(OECD, 1996, p. 7)

	
  
	
  

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PISA was first administered in the year 2000 in 32 countries, all but four of them members of
the OECD (OECD & UIS, 2003, p. 3). By 2012, that number had risen to 65 participating
countries and economies, including all 34 OECD member countries, 28 non-OECD member
countries, plus the three economic entities of Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Macau (OECD,
2015c). With over half a million 15-year-olds tested in 2012, PISA has become the largest
international comparison of the output of educational systems. In the media, PISA results areusually presented as a ranking table from highest to lowest with national flags next to the namesof the countries.
Assessment Logic
Central to the PISA test design is the concept of literacy, which focuses on how well candidates
are able to apply knowledge to challenges of modern life. PISA consists of three assessment
areas, measuring literacy in the domains of reading, mathematics, and science.
Starting from the year 2000, a PISA assessment is conducted every three years, each year, inturn, emphasizing one of the three focus areas. Tests are mostly pencil and paper, latelyinterspersed with computerized modules. They are conducted in selected schools and last twohours for each student. Each PISA test cycle covers a total of about seven hours of test items,with different candidates taking different combinations of items. Test items are a mixture ofclosed multiple-choice and open questions requiring candidates to formulate their own
responses. Most items are organized in groups based on a real-life setting, with each item
designed to be progressively harder to answer. In addition to taking the test, candidates answer
a background questionnaire, providing information about themselves, their study environment
and their homes. School principals are given a 20-minute questionnaire about their schools.
The data collected during the main test is analyzed separately as well as in combination with
the questionnaires on the pupils’ social and educational background. Contextual indicators
relate results to student and school characteristics, while trend indicators show how resultschange over time. The data provided by each test cycle is presented in several specialized
volumes by the PISA consortium of OECD, treating issues of gender and economic equality(OECD, 2013a), student’s motivation (OECD, 2013b), reasons for school success (OECD,
2013c) and others. These analyses1 often form the knowledge base for policy changes.
PISA’s Marketing Machine and the Public Debate
PISA’s brochures state very prominently that its results indicate a nation’s future prosperity,
while they are presented in a sports-like list for international comparison. The resulting media
exposure puts enormous pressure on politicians to fix an educational system that so obviously
seems to be broken.
PISA is not the first international assessment of its kind. Educational planning depends verymuch on comparative data in order to be able to learn from the experiences of others. Largescale international comparisons are a relatively new trend made possible by the globalizedcooperation and technical advancements in analyzing large amounts of data. Other large-scale
1

Or, since most decision makers do not have the time to read six large volumes of dense data results, their“executive summaries”, a 30-plus page compressed version of the results, which is provided for each test cycle
and available for download from the official OECD website at http://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisaproducts (visited on
201-01-05).

	
  
	
  

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studies include PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study), which runs on a 5year cycle since 2001, and TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study),
which is deployed every four years since 1995. While these two focus on single faculties, PISA
claims to cover the whole of school education by evaluating reading, mathematics, and science
literacy. Whether PISA actually owns up to this claim will be discussed in a later section, but
it is a very powerful argument for marketing purposes that makes journalists and politicians
pay attention to its results.
The ultimately new feature of PISA though, which distinguishes it from all other studies, is its
easily understandable, sports-like ranking presentation. Although the PISA consortium
publishes several thick volumes on the various findings of each assessment cycle, the compact
ranking presentation with national flags next to a country’s2 score is what is the most easily
picked up on. In combination with this strikingly understandable presentation of complex
results, PISA’s claim to measuring the success of participating country’s educational systems
and thereby predicting the future economic well-being of that country’s citizens makes forexcellent headlines. The above-mentioned volumes published on basic PISA results – six for
2012, together amounting to 2,444 pages of high-quality in-depth analyses – play acomparatively insignificant role in the marketing process. Each of those volumes could beacquired for around 35€, but they are accompanied by a host of readily downloadable brochures,summaries, data tables, blogs, webinars and highlights (cf. OECD, 2015b); these free materials
make it easy to ignore the in-depth studies. All of PISA’s marketing uses affirmative language,leaving no doubt of its importance for a country’s future:“What is important for citizens to know and be able to do?” That is the question that
underlies the triennial survey of 15-year-old students around the world […] (OECD,
2014, p. 24)
PISA is not only an accurate indicator of students’ abilities to participate fully in society
after compulsory school, but also a powerful tool that countries and economies can use
to fine-tune their education policies. (OECD, 2014, p. 4)
Once quoted by the press, these claims put enormous pressure on politicians – especially if, as
in the case of Germany, their country’s PISA results do not match up with its self-image of aleading industrialized nation.
All PISA publications, including the complete volumes, use easily quotable language, which
would normally be associated with commercial marketing material. Journalists can take theirpick from short bits to more elaborate passages and mix those with all kinds of graphs andpictures – all readily available in high quality from OECD’s official website. The media
attention creates a feedback loop where the public attention increases the importance of the
PISA studies themselves and urges more and more participants to snowball into the testing
cycles.

2

Not all of PISA’s participants are countries (cf. OECD, 2015c). The official nomenclature uses the term
economies, but since the vast majority of these are sovereign countries represented in the result tables by theirflags, this text uses the terms countries and nations, tacitly including participants such as Shanghai, which are notinternationally considered sovereign, or a country.

	
  
	
  

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PISA’s Role in Measuring Educational SuccessCentral to the whole concept of PISA is the claim to measure the success of a country’s school
system (OECD, 2013c, p. 31). Put simply, the reason for inaugurating such a tool is that schools
teach knowledge and skills that prepare pupils for the workforce. The test is designed tomeasure whether pupils who are about to leave school can employ what they learned to read inorder to participate in society, put mathematical knowledge to real world use, and do the samewith science. PISA does a very good job of measuring the ability of pupils to apply knowledge
acquired in school to real world problems and therefore can make a meaningful contribution to
the data on which educational politics aiming to improve these results are based.
By claiming to measure and compare a school systems’ success internationally, PISA reduces
the role of schools to providing knowledge and skills in the three areas its tests cover. This
makes sense from a purely economic perspective but ignores an important part of theeducational mandate of schools, which is to convey personal, practical, and political formationin addition to facilitating the capacity for training. The goals set for pupils can be summarized3
as “attitudes, skills, and knowledge” (KMBW & LEU, 2004, pp. 11–13).
In addition to stressing the value of the tested skills for the economy, PISA publications
consistently include references to the future role of students as citizens: In the definition foreach of the three test areas, reading literacy is described as “understanding, using, reflecting on
and engaging with written texts, in order to achieve one’s goals, to develop one’s knowledge
and potential, and to participate in society” (OECD, 2010, p. 39), mathematical literacy“measured 15-year-olds’ capacity to reason mathematically and use mathematical concepts,
procedures, facts and tools to describe, explain and predict phenomena, and to make the wellfounded judgements and decisions needed by constructive, engaged and reflective citizens”(OECD, 2014, p. 17), and scientific literacy includes “an individual’s […] willingness toengage with science-related issues, and with the ideas of science, as a reflective citizen”(OECD, 2007, pp. 34–35).
This paper argues that while reading, mathematics, and natural sciences are indeed essential
tools for producing constructive, engaged, and reflective citizens, they can only be seen as anindirect part of the basis for achieving this kind of enlightened citizenship. This is to say that,without reading, it would be impossible to acquire a worldview nourished by literature, art,
music, and ethics. In other words, PISA actually tests the foundations on which citizenship canbe built, while suggesting measuring the whole building.
PISA’s Impact on the Public Debate
The fact that the crudest summary of PISA's results – in the form of international comparison
tables – is readily available to the press and easily interpreted by the general public makes PISA
and its concept of literacy central to the public debate on education. In 2001, when reports ofGermany’s pupils’ abysmal scores reached the general public for the first time, the news cameas a shock. The press had a feast, titling “The Bill for our Outdated Education System”(Lehmann, 2001, p. 2), “Abysmal Report Card for Obsolete School System” (SZ, 2001, p. 8)“Outcome Could Not Have Been Worse” (Schubert, 2001, p. 27), “Many Pupils in Germany
3

These citations follow the wording in the school law of the state of Baden-Württemberg, which summarizes therole of primary schools in an exemplary manner. The spirit of schooling having a greater goal than the facilitationof knowledge permeates the school laws of all 16 of Germany’s Länder.

	
  
	
  

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on Lowermost Level” (FAZ, 2001, p. 4), “A Disaster in Almost Every Respect” (TAZ, 2001,
p. 14), and the like. Being in the last third of the overall ranking was a huge blow to the Germans’
self-esteem, so there were many protests against PISA’s methodology, resulting in the additionof the new category “Problem Solving” to the test round of 2003. Nevertheless, this addition
had not the desired impact of improving Germany's results, which stayed very low throughout
all subsequent PISA studies. In Germany, PISA became synonymous with educational
mismanagement, which was widely perceived to be the main cause of pupils’ ineptness ininternational competition.
PISA’s Political Pull
PISA was commissioned by the OECD for assessing and internationally comparing schoolacquired skills with regard to their use in job-related settings. The outcomes of each test cycledeliver a basic profile of knowledge and skills across 15-year-old pupils in all participating
countries.4 Decision makers use its results to decide budget allocations for the school systemand to consider the policies of other contestants in order to find a method of tweaking theirrespective systems to accommodate their own agendas. Test results are meant to be interpreted
as indicators of future economic competitiveness and welfare in a globalized economy, wherea skilled, productive workforce is key to international economic success.
The results are persuasive by design, and the subsequent political pressure is very high, even
without considering the public pressure from media reporting. One academic study famously
states that if a country succeeds in raising its average PISA score by 25% (and keep it there),“GDP will be more than 3% higher than what would be expected without improvements inhuman capital” after 30 years, when those higher achieving pupils start playing more prominentroles in the labor market (Hanushek & Woessmann, 2010, p. 22). For Germany, that would
mean an increase by over 8 trillion USD in addition to the GDP with “education as usual”(ibid.).
Germany’s Educational Shift of Values and PISA’s Role in It
The traditional concept of Bildung in the sense of self-formation, as envisioned by Wilhelmvon Humboldt (1767-1835), sees the role of schools in cultivating socially responsible citizens
for a lifetime of learning. On the verge of the 19th century, after Prussia lost its struggle against
Napoleon, the Prussian king Frederick William III (1770-1840) was forced to modernize most
aspects of his government and administration, including the school system. These
modernizations were in part connected to the movement of enlightenment, which was sweeping
over all of Europe.
At the time, Humboldt was Prussian minister of education. He took advantage of his King’squest to strengthen his domestic position to start creating a school system consisting ofelementary school, secondary school (Gymnasium), and university. These schools would be
open to everybody and were intended to lead to a society of enlightened citizens. The selling
point of this plan was that during the Napoleonic wars Prussian soldiers lacked the spirit and4

The underlying reasoning for choosing 15-year-olds still in school as test subjects is that they represent theoutcome of 9 years of basic schooling, which corresponds to the duration of compulsory education in most OECD
countries. These pupils are seen as being on the verge of finding their place in the job world, so the reasoning isthat if they function well in a professional environment, they will contribute to the economical welfare of theirfamilies, their employers, and ultimately the economy they live in.

	
  
	
  

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unifying national identity to resist French citoyen soldiers. If a change in the schooling system
could be expected to bring about more patriotic thinking citizens, Germany might still be able
to compete internationally while at the same time paying large sums in tribute payments toFrance. In 1809, in a report to the King, Humboldt wrote:
There is a certain kind of knowledge that has to be made general, and furthermore acertain form of formation of attitude and character, that cannot be missing in anybody.
The requirement for being a good craftsman, merchant, soldier, or businessman isbeing, without regard to one’s particular profession, a good, decent, and enlightened
citizen according to one’s social class. If school education provides all that is necessary
for this purpose, he will later acquire the specific skill of his profession easily andalways be free to change from one to the other, as it happens so often in life. (Humboldt,
1903, p. 206) [Author’s translation]5
Humboldt promoted a schooling system, which would teach basic knowledge in order to be
utilized later in acquiring job-specific skills (Humboldt, 1903, p. 207); on top of that, it would
also emphasize ethical values. Based on what they had learned at school, graduates would not
only be able to later pick up job-specific skills easily, but society as a whole would draw profit
from the fact that all citizens have a similar ethical mindset. Regardless, Humboldt’s ideas ofuniversal school attendance were too far-reaching for the King of Prussia, who had halfheartedly implemented some reforms to gain stronger domestic footing against Napoleon. It
was not until a century later, in 1919, that the unified Germany of the Weimar Republic madefree-of-charge school attendance compulsory until the age of 18.
Today, most Germans think of the Humboldtian view on education as an idealized educational
concept which starts with Humboldt's idea that schools should teach pupils to maximize theirpotentials in order to fully realize their humanity and take an active role in society. The
implementation of this concept nowadays includes the teaching of practical skills such as
modern languages and natural sciences, which Humboldt was fervently opposed to.6
Over time, with its fruition around the Weimar Republic (1918-1933), Germany developed
today’s school system, which selects pupils at an early age in order to place them into one ofthree different tiers. At the age of ten, after four years of primary school, pupils who show no
ability or inclination to submit themselves to prolonged academic studies are placed into
Hauptschule (secondary I). Those pupils who do well in practical subjects and show no
inclination to pursue further studies at the university are placed into Realschule (secondary II).
Pupils who show academic prowess and want to prepare themselves for the university areplaced in Gymnasium (secondary III). Germany’s tiered school system with its early
segregation is accompanied by an elaborate vocational apparatus; it will be discussed in moredetail in the next section.
Shortly after the end of World War II, western countries were wealthy again and international
corporations began to emerge; global competition began to challenge western nation’s school5

Es giebt schlechterdings gewisse Kenntnisse, die allgemein sein müssen, und noch mehr eine gewisse Bildung
der Gesinnungen und des Charakters, die keinem fehlen darf. Jeder ist offenbar nur dann ein guter Handwerker,
Kaufmann, Soldat und Geschäftsmann, wenn er an sich und ohne Hinsicht auf seinen besondern Beruf ein guter,anständiger, seinem Stande nach aufgeklärter Mensch und Bürger ist. Giebt ihm der Schulunterricht, was hiezu
erforderlich ist, so erwirbt er die besondere Fähigkeit seines Berufs nachher sehr leicht und behält immer die
Freiheit, wie im Leben so oft geschiehet, von einem zum andern überzugehen.
6
An often forgotten oddity about the Humboldtian model of higher education is that practical skills and jobspecific training did emphatically not belong in his concept, where schools tach enough basic knowledge andskills that anything specific can be acquired easily when it’s needed.

	
  
	
  

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systems. Starting in the 1950s and reaching its first peak in the early 1960s, society began todemand that schools should teach job-applicable skills instead of what was perceived as deadknowledge. Germany's educational system underwent a gradual shift, where output substituted
input in the design of school curricula. Formerly curricula were based on criteria concerning
the contents pupils should be taught, hours allotted for certain subjects, and teacher
qualification; in the hope that this input would naturally lead to the desired result of self-reliant
citizens. With the shift towards an output-oriented school education, curriculum design
experienced the 180-degree-revolution of crafting curricula to produce pupils with certain
standardized skill-sets and knowledge that could be quantified in standardized tests. Thisrevolution culminates in the reforms after PISA and is the key to the shift in values of the wholeof Germany’s educational system.
In 1964, the educator Georg Picht (1913-1982) declared an educational catastrophe(Bildungskatastrophe)7 for the first time in German history. With a lot of media attention, hevoiced concerns that had been building up for some time in German society: Germany’s
expenses for education were very low in international comparison, not enough pupils reachedAbitur8, there was a huge performance gap between rural and urban school districts, and thethree-tiered school system needed fundamental reforms. Picht’s message got kidnapped by the
media, which simplified it into reporting that schools were not delivering the skills andknowledge necessary for their pupils to be economically successful in later life, thus
endangering Germany’s future prosperity.
The fact that Germany’s educational system is undergoing a shift of values by substituting
Bildung with job qualification can be linked to the usurpation of Picht’s warnings by media
and politics. While Picht – himself being a music lover and an ardent enthusiast for Plato’s
philosophy – aimed for equity in education and better school funding, his message wasdistorted to the need of teaching practical skills for immediate use and thus marginalizing
subjects that have no economic application. PISA can be seen in the tradition of this first waveof school criticism and has contributed to the shift of values by focusing on the economic
impact of schooling and by marketing to be the most publicly visible test program of its kind.
The nowadays ubiquitous term qualification constitutes a direct connection to the workplace;
within PISA’s publications, it is used synonymously with employability. Consequently, for theGerman public, PISA 2000 was a wake-up call comparable to Picht’s, showing that Germany’s
next generation would not be able to compete in a globalized economy.
Policy Reactions to PISAPISA results, if taken as an accurate measurement of a limited resource, have enormous
persuasive power. Official reactions of the “Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education
and Cultural Affairs” (KMK)9 were issued the same day as the PISA 2000 results, which had
been illegally leaked before their official release date. In their statement, KMK demanded
improvements in all major fields of schooling: Language competence should be raised,
Kindergarten and primary school were to be interlocked, the lack of reading competence should7

The original series of newspaper articles from the protestant weekly Christ und Welt was published in book form
as Picht, G. (1964): Die deutsche Bildungskatastrophe: Analyse und Dokumentation. Freiburg: Walter.
8
Abitur is the matriculation examination that completes graduation from secondary III, the Gymnasium.
9
As de-facto governing body, the Standing Conference unites the ministers and senators of the Länder responsible
for education, higher education and research, as well as cultural affairs. It deals with “issues relating to educational
policy at school and university level and research policy, was well as cultural policy of supraregional importance,with the aim of achieving joint opinion and decision-making and of representing joint concerns” (KMK, 2015).

	
  
	
  

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Volume 5 – Issue 1 – Spring 2017be addressed as well as pupils’ understanding of mathematical and scientific relations. KMK
also stressed the importance of the advancement of educationally disadvantaged children, ofcommon standards and evaluation across all Länder, of professionalism in teaching; they also
put forward a tentative call for all-day schooling (KMK, 2001).
Although at this stage most of KMK’s demands were lip service without practical backup, it
was clear that PISA results were as unacceptable for educational decision makers as they were
for the general public. One of the early consequences of PISA was the 2002 expansion of
educational research; this turn towards using the empirical arsenal of educational research forpolitical planning is similar to the “Realistische Wendung [turn towards realism]” of the 1960s
as demanded by educators such as Roth (1962) and Brezinka (1989). After the PISA andTIMSS studies, a significant increase in financial resources allocated to education also
followed (Raidt, 2010, p. 247). In 2004, a comprehensive quality offensive called Bildungsplan
2004 swept all Länder, aiming to improve the four sectors of professional competence, social
competence, methodological competence, and personal competence. Four years later theGerman federal government in coordination with the heads of government of the Länder
proclaimed a “qualification initiative”, being a comprehensive educational reform programfrom kindergarten through university (for details, see Raidt, 2010, p. 114).
It is important to note the vocabulary of ‘competencies’ and ‘qualification’ permeating all
education-related publications as the new yardstick for defining educational goals. Judging
from the increased usage of job-market related expressions such as quality, competence, andqualification, as well as the contents of these proposals, they clearly indicate the utilitarian shiftof paradigm in the Germany’s educational consciousness, which abandons the traditional
values of Bildung in favor of utilizing schools as tools towards job qualification.
The Role of Schools in Society
Traditionally, schools convey personal, practical, and political education by facilitating
desirable attitudes, skills, and knowledge. This threefold role of schooling for society isreflected in most legislative frameworks around the world. Lately, German Bildungspläne(educational roadmaps set by education ministers of the Länder to be implemented in publicschool curricula), tend to contain the term Ausbildungsfähigkeit (the ability to receive job
training; KMBW & LEU, 2004, p. 11) with the goal of producing graduates who can makeeconomic contributions.
At this point, the KMK, responsible for German educational politics, does not differentiate
anymore between Bildung and competencies. Their output-oriented standards describe “thesubject-related competencies including underlying stocks of knowledge that pupils should haveachieved up to a certain time in the course of their training” (KMK, 2005, p. 6), while
simultaneously explicitly claiming that
The mission of school education goes far beyond the functional requirements ofeducational standards. It aims at personal development and orientation in the world
arising from the encounter with the central objects of our culture. Pupils should betaught to be empowered citizens who can responsibly, self-critically and constructively
shape their professional and personal lives and participate in political and social life.
(KMK, 2005, p. 6) [Author’s translation]

	
  
	
  

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Young People Seen as an Economic Resource
The modern need for investment in resources naturally leads to the concepts of human capitaland human resources. Human capital theory regards human resources as capital, which is
acquired using time and material costs, and indirectly brings increased benefits to the investor.
In terms of profit, the benefits must at least compensate for the investments made in humancapital. Seen from this angle, Bildung shifts its meaning towards fuel for the engine of
economic development (Knecht, 1988, pp. 41–43).
The OECD, and with it PISA, sees education in its relation to the economy, focusing on theeconomic value of schooling, to then generally affirm “the productive utility of humanknowledge” (OECD, 1996, p. 22). This view has been characterized by the UN as the “humancapital approach” to education (Tomasevski, 2000, pp. 23–24). It stands in opposition to theapproach of education seen as a human right, where “education should prepare learners forparenthood or political participation, enhance social cohesion and tolerance” (ibid: 23).
Because of the traditional idea of education as the formation of the whole person, German
politicians rarely use the term ‘human resources’; but the concept has long found its way into
political decision making (Raidt, 2010, p. 212).
Accompanying the educational shift from Bildung towards qualification are re-interpretationsof formerly positive connoted terms, such as equity in education and lifelong learning, in theparlance of PISA. Raidt (2010, p. 209) notes that PISA’s demand for equity in education seems
to be more accurately described as the demand for efficient use of human resources. The
German Protestant Church (EKG, 2003, p. 7) sees the new usage of the traditional concept oflifelong learning gaining new ambivalence by being interpreted as “lifelong adaption to
constantly changing economic needs and goals”. It demands that “Bildung should be more thanjust knowledge and learning”, its goal should be the understanding of self and the world of
human beings (ibid: 8).
In 2007/8, with a view to international competition and in order to shorten the time needed forfinishing secondary education, many German Länder ordered their Gymnasiums to reduce
schooling before Abitur from 13 to only 12 years. 10 This policy entailed the first wave ofstudent strikes since the seventies. Demands of the students were varied, but in essence, they
can be perceived as protesting the assigned role of students as human capital. A Stuttgart
pamphlet calling for strike stated: “Bildung is being streamlined according to economic use.
[…] We do not want to be turned into Fachidiots [one-track specialists] who are being prepped
for the job market” (Schüleraktionskomitee Stuttgart 2008: 2, cited from Raidt, 2010, p. 218[my translation]).
The main fault for PISA becoming the yardstick after which schooling is shaped seems not tolie with PISA’s own statements, but with its presentation by the media and public perception.
Cum Grano Salis: PISA results for Germany	
  Although the title of each PISA cycle’s recurrent fourth volume, “What Makes Schools
Successful”, implies recipes for changing school systems, results and data from theinternational PISA test have limited value for shaping a country’s educational policies. The
10

Throughout Germany, this policy is known as G8, because pupils would stay in Gymnasium for only 8 insteadof 9 years.

	
  
	
  

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Volume 5 – Issue 1 – Spring 2017industry might base certain location decisions on the comparison of 15-year-olds’ answers to
PISA’s questions, and general statements concerning the strengths and weaknesses of country’s
youth in global comparison might point to areas where political action is required. Nevertheless,decisions concerning reforms to national educational systems have to be based on data thattakes local conditions into account. In order to produce high-quality results and a data basis for
specific problems, such an assessment must adapt factors like size of test subject group andparticipating schools; as well as goals, objectives, and questions of the assessment, to local
circumstances.
Three-Tiered Segregation in German Schools
In Germany, Kindergarten is generally available for all children between 2 and 6 years of age,
after which school attendance is compulsory. At the age of 10, after four years of primaryeducation in Grundschule, teachers suggest one of the three types of secondary school
according to the pupils’ performance and personality traits. Parents then decide - within certain
constraints set by their progenies academic performance and maturity – into which type of
secondary school they want to enroll their children. This system of early segregation is uniqueworldwide and often seen as problematic. Today, only Austria retains a similarly early
segregation system, while Switzerland and Liechtenstein switched to segregation after grade
six in response to their first PISA rating.
Secondary I (Hauptschule) ends after ninth grade. It is the least theoretically oriented of thesecondary choices. Education combines traditional knowledge acquisition with practicaltraining in manual skills (Holfelder & Bosse, 1990, p. 612). Graduates mostly choose to go
into an apprenticeship, which is a highly regulated combination of schooling and job training
called Dual Vocational Training (Dualer Bildungsweg). Secondary II (Realschule) “provides
an extended general education, which is based on real-life situations […] and creates the basis
for vocational training programs […]” (Holfelder & Bosse, 1990, p. 52). It ends after tenth
grade, whereupon graduating pupils are attested maturity (Mittlere Reife). They can thenfurther their studies at the Gymnasium or enter an apprenticeship, typically in a white-collar
environment. Secondary III (Gymnasium) goes onto grade 12 or 13 and focuses on academic
knowledge. After grade ten, pupils can decide whether to pursue a career similar to that ofSecondary II or enter the upper grades (Oberstufe) which lead to the Abitur, a nationwide
standardized graduation test serving as the qualification exam for entering university (for moredetails, see Holfelder & Bosse, 1990, p. 55). In some German Länder, there is also a fourth
type of secondary school called the comprehensive school (Gesamtschule). It comprises all
three types of Hauptschule, Realschule, and Gymnasium under the same roof. The syllabus
offers courses proprietary of all three types of schools and pupils are encouraged to choose
according to their inclination. Up to grade nine and ten, all common subjects are taught inmixed classes. After grade ten, Gesamtschule turns into Gymnasium.
Germany’s three-tiered educational system was originally intended to separate pupils at an
early age and prepare them for the life that best fits their individual abilities and inclinations.
The system allows graduates from every tier of secondary schooling to be economically
successful in their professional lives as well as in their personal aspirations. For example, aplumber, having finished three years of apprenticeship after nine years of compulsory
schooling, has a good chance of passing the standardized Geselle test, which makes her
employable at full salary in enterprises throughout Germany. She might then try the morechallenging four-year second stage of apprenticeship to attain the Meister diploma – a status

	
  
	
  

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Volume 5 – Issue 1 – Spring 2017enabling her to open her own business and be a voting member of her guild, thus influencing
policy in the field of plumbing and beyond.
PISA’s defining principle is testing 15-year-olds11, because they are considered to be “nearing
the end of their compulsory time at school” (OECD, 2015a), and – by extension – on the vergeof entering the job market. Although the wording has become more cautious than before, when
PISA claimed to “measure how well young adults at age 15 […] are prepared to meet thechallenges of today’s knowledge societies” (OECD & UIS, 2003, p. 12), the underlying
suggestion that 15-year-olds are at the end of their education still stands and still contradicts
German reality. Germany’s tiered school system is inextricably paired with Dual Vocational
Training (Dualer Bildungsweg). This puts 15- or 16-year-olds into vocational training after
leaving secondary I and II (Hauptschule and Realschule)12. In most cases, vocational training
takes the form of an apprenticeship in an approved enterprise. Apprenticeships generally last
three years, consist of a combination of vocational school and hands-on training in said
enterprise and conclude with a formal examination for a nationally recognized degree. Thissystem ensures that under-18-year-olds do not actually work in full-time employment, but stayin enrolled in a form of schooling that has been tailored to prepare them for their jobs, while
simultaneously continuing to teach ‘classic’ school subjects. “Even for the two-thirds of all
pupils who leave full-time schooling in Germany at 15/16 to enter an apprenticeship […] parttime attendance at mathematics courses remains obligatory at ages 16–18.” (Prais, 2003, p.
142)
PISA-E, the Policy Reaction to PISA
Since Germany does not have a centralized body governing school education, and each of its
16 Länder have their own educational jurisdiction, it would be virtually impossible to advocate
nationwide changes without collecting detailed data tailored to Germany’s specific educational
problems. Shortly after the first international PISA test, Germany launched PISA-E, testing anational ‘extended’ sample many times larger than that of the original international study.
PISA-E is tailored to and analyses in detail external factors such as regionally different school
systems, curricula, demographics, etc. Data obtained by the tests, which are deployed the day
after each PISA test in the same 200 plus six times as many additional schools13, is used tolocate and address differences in educational opportunities for the sexes, socially divergent
target groups, children with migration background, regions in eastern versus western Germany,etc.
PISA-E uses “entirely different mathematical questions […] to reflect better (a) the
actual school curriculum in Germany and (b) the spread of attainments of German
pupils. In contrast to a total of 31 questions in mathematics in the international inquiry,
the German national extended inquiry had an additional 86 mathematical questions”(Prais, 2003, p. 141)
11

The official definition of PISA’s target population reads: “PISA covers students who are aged between 15 years
3 months and 16 years 2 months at the time of assessment and who are enrolled in school and have completed atleast 6 years of formal schooling, regardless of the type of institution in which they are enrolled and of whether
they are in full-time or part-time education, of whether they attend academic or vocational programmes, and ofwhether they attend public or private schools or foreign schools within the country.“ (OECD, 2014, p. 22)
12
Graduates of secondary III also do not immediately enter the job market; they decide to either enroll inuniversity or take up studies in an advanced vocational training program.
13
In 2000, in addition to the 219 schools, which participated in the international study, another 1,466 schools took
the PISA-E test (Stanat et al., 2002, p. 4).

	
  
	
  

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If we consider the stated goal of PISA – providing decision makers with a quantifiable base formaking changes in the educational system – then it seems strange that the survey is notconcerned with mastery of the school curriculum, instead of testing how successfully pupils
might cope with ‘everyday life’ post-school situations (Prais, 2003, p. 142). Especially notable
are the ‘real life’ situations which include items like calculating the arc length of the blades ofa revolving door to exclude air-flow between inside and out (OECD, 2014, p. 131) and the ageof lichen according to its diameter.14 It is not obvious in what sense this kind of questions test
everyday mathematical literacy.
Conclusion
The PISA study was designed by the OECD – an international organization with the purpose
to consolidate the economic well-being of its members. As such, PISA’s goal is to determine
and compare the usability of future human capital for participating countries and proposechanges to the educational systems in order to maximize profits for their economy. PISA results
point to weaknesses in the abilities of the current set of human capital and compare its quality
internationally.
PISA delivers very detailed and very valuable data for international comparison of the jobrelated skills of 15-year-olds. The alarmist reception of its results is largely due to oversimplified media coverage – which is facilitated by PISA’s own marketing machinery.
Results are indeed disturbing for Germany and should definitely not be ignored; measures must
be taken to improve the ability of young people to put their skills to economic use; not only forthe benefit of the economy they are part of, but also for their personal economic well-being.
One of the most alarming outcomes of the study indicates that a large percentage of 15-yearolds in Germany cannot read. A possible explanation for this phenomenon might be thatchildren with migration background constitute a large part of PISA’s test candidates and do nothave an adequate command of the German language to follow the classes they visit. Schoolingmust include all pupils and training in the basic skills must be intensified for weaker students,
so they too can move on to other subjects, find their personal fulfillment, and be a contributing
part of society.
On the other hand, education – in the Bildung sense of the formation of intrinsically humanvalues – is about much more than the preparation of human capital. Human civilization isdefined by the development of arts and skills whose values are not readily measured inmonetary units. The media and public response to PISA results consisted in blind acceptanceof its reductionist message and consequently cutting down the pillars of society’s educational
system towards a quantifiable, result-oriented supply of human resources to the economy.
The underlying assumption of PISA is that schools should produce students who are able toadapt their skills to the needs of the industrial labor market (Bennett, 2006, p. iii). Following
the detailed plans of action PISA’s analysts suggest for Germany’s school system would help
maintain a skilled workforce and doubtless contribute towards a healthier economy. It would
14

A sample PISA question, quoted after Prais (2003, pp. 142–143) is given as: “The approximate relation between
the diameter (d, measured in mm) of a small plant (called a lichen) and its age (t, measured in years) is d = 7√ (t-12).
Ann found a lichen of 35 mm diameter. Question: What is its approximate age?” Prais’ verdict: “[This question is]particularly ‘unreal’ (even ‘imaginary’, in the technical mathematical sense): what is here supposed to happen in
the first 12 years of the life of a lichen?” (Prais, 2003, p. 155).

	
  
	
  

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not, however, further humanity’s path towards a civilized society. What makes PISA a major
factor for the ongoing crisis in the German educational system is the misconception of it beinga tool for measuring educational success. It tests basic education, not general education and“says something about the preconditions for Bildung, but little about [Bildung] itself. […] The
foundation should not be confused with the building” (Adam, 2004, p. 10). By emphasizing
qualification, skills, and standards, we face the danger of neglecting a content-centered debate
or a culturally and regionally specific educational canon. Linked to this is the risk of neglecting
school subjects with no direct macroeconomic or individual benefit. These include all subjects
that are not part of the basic education defined by PISA, such as philosophy, the arts, and music(cf. Raidt, 2010, p. 247).
The shift of values from Bildung to qualification is deplorable; Germany’s three-tiered
segregational school system might be a chance to first deal with a basic qualification and maybe
move subjects not directly related to job qualification to the higher grades. In spirit, the German
tiered school system is intended to provide each citizen with the opportunity to undergoschooling according to his or her individual abilities and tastes. Unfortunately, the theory does
not hold up to modern reality – especially when mobility between the tiers of secondary andtertiary education is concerned; Students mostly stay in the school where they were put at theage of 10 and follow the path of least resistance for their choice of secondary education.
Moreover, the social background seems to be far stronger in determining pupil’s secondary
school than their academic performance or personal inclination.
PISA’s focus on the application of factual knowledge in the modern work environment
challenges the traditional German understanding of Bildung as lifelong striving to achieve auniquely human mindset. It evaluates schools as a delivery system of skilled workers for theindustry. While PISA results are indeed alarming and political action needs to be taken to better
prepare pupils for the job world, Germany should not forget that Bildung is more than mere
qualification. Maybe there is still a chance to keep subjects such as ethics, arts, literature, andmusic in school curricula while simultaneously renovating the outdated system of tiered
segregation, which may keep late developers from getting the education they deserve.
Wernstedt and John-Ohnesorg (2008, p. 11) might be onto something when they theorize that
German middle-class parents are willing to put up with a flawed educational system as long as
Gymnasium and Realschule keep their children separated from the socially disadvantaged andfrom foreigners.

	
  
	
  

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Corresponding author: Wolfgang Odendahl
Email: odendahl@ntu.edu.tw

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