Poll: Better staffing needed for equal opportunities at German schools

Nine in 10 Germans believe better staffing at the country's schools and kindergartens is urgently needed to improve educational standards, according to a new report.

The German educational system is consistently receiving poor ratings when it comes to ensuring equal opportunities regardless of parents' education and income.

Unlike in many other countries, most children in Germany are sent to different schools depending on their performance as early as grade 5, when most are about 11 years old.

Some 93% of some 1,000 adults questioned by pollsters Forsa on behalf of the German Children's Fund, a non-profit group that advocates children's rights, said that additional staffing at schools and kindergartens would be either important or very important to create equal opportunities for children from socially disadvantaged homes.

Uniform educational standards (91%), free education from preschool through school (90%), and greater collaboration between various educational institutions such as preschools, schools, and youth programs (88%) were also considered to be vital by the respondents questioned between January 7 and 16.

A total of 84% of adults said they consider increased financial support for schools with a high proportion of socially disadvantaged children to be either important or very important.

For its annual Child Report, the organization also questioned some 1,000 children aged between 10 and 17 to get their thoughts on how the educational system could be improved to create more equal opportunities.

Free access to kindergartens, schools and learning materials was considered most important by kids at 88%, followed by equal standards across all German schools at 87%.

A total of 78% of children questioned were in favour of allowing refugee kids to attend school as quickly as possible.

Germany's decentralized educational system

The German schooling system is complicated by the fact that responsibility lies with the country's 16 federal states, meaning each of the 16 states has its own policies.

This means, for example, that attending kindergarten is free in the city state of Berlin, unlike in Germany's most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

In Berlin, children usually start secondary school in grade 7 - at around the age of 12 - while primary school in North Rhine-Westphalia only covers grade 1 to 4.

Public school and university are free nationwide, though parents often have to contribute to books and other learning materials.