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Comment by hnbad | Hacker News Reader

It's also ironic to talk about how egalitarian German academia supposedly is when the school system in contrast is three-tiered for historical (explicitly classist) reasons, and higher education itself retains this multi-tiered approach through the distinction between universities ("Universität"), universities of applied sciences ("Fachhochschule"), trade schools ("Berufsschule") and the like.

There may be fewer extreme outliers within the university system but that doesn't mean the system as a whole is egalitarian. Also it's not clear if its a bad thing if universities aren't retaining "elites" if a signficant part of research in Germany isn't happening at universities themselves. If that is a problem, the problem isn't that "elite academics" aren't properly supported, it's that the institutions to support them have been moved out of the universities into a more privatized market, but that sounds like a different conversation.

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That's why I was really surprised about the content of the article (to be honest I haven't made it past the TL;DR yet), I would have guessed that the problem would be too little egalitarianism.

Kids here are sorted into career paths at age 10 by sending them to Gymnasium, Realschule, or Hauptschule. To even attend higher education you need to have an Abitur, which means going to a Gymnasium or putting in extra years of study after your Realschule.

The argument is that this division allows every kid to learn at a level appropriate to them, but the reality is that an overworked teacher of 20+ kids is supposed to accurately assess everyone's level and then give a recommendation for one of the schools.

My impression is that a lot more weight is put on formal qualifications here than in the US, so in practice this choice sorts you into your future social status for most kids.

My N=1 annecdote is a friend of mine who recently finished his PhD at TUM, the teacher wanted to send him to a Hauptschule. If his parents hadn't intervened his life would probably be very different right now. Annecdotaly I know a couple of engineers who went to Realschule and then had to work hard to get an Abitur before going to Uni. Who knows how many smart people were discouraged from pursuing higher education because it would mean two more years of high school just to even start.

The system seem arbitrary at best to me, and at its worst is just reinforcing class status through generations. Parents with university degrees will fight to have their kids go to Gymnasium, or the teacher might send them because they know they come from an Akademikerfamilie, and the others better hope their teacher likes them.

> My N=1 annecdote is a friend of mine who recently finished his PhD at TUM, the teacher wanted to send him to a Hauptschule.

Similar, but extended family in my case: was to be sent to a special-needs school (which doesn't even lead to the opportunity to get vocational training), parents fought (hiring a lawyer, and including psychological examinations), child grew up to finish two masters degrees and one PhD.

This early classification of kids, for lack of a better term, is so screwed up. And it has all kinds of issues around social background, racial discrimination and whatnot. Ever PISA study I remember basically gave us the same feedback, black on white. Not that I expect it to change in my lifetime so. it did get considerably easier, as opposed to easy, to get access to university level education when starting out at a Hauptschule since I went to school. Back then, like 20 odd years ago, it was basically impossible to do so.

I have the highest respect of everyone who actually goes from a Hauptschule to a university degree, this is probably the hardest way to get higher education imaginably around here.

As a German who got into the highest of the three tiers ("Gymnasium" which has nothing to do with sports in German), I absolutely agree.

The understanding was that if you wanted to go to university, you needed to go to Gymnasium because it was the only way to get an Abitur (basically, a high school diploma) within the school system. Realschule was for those who didn't quite make the cut but they could still switch to Gymnasium later. Hauptschule was the drain strainer, it would effectively brand you as a failure and you'd be lucky if you are even considered for a crafts job if anything.

Of course it's important to keep in mind that this decision is made for ten year olds. They have their entire life ahead of them and some do defeat the odds but the struggle of those barely making it to Gymnasium to stay there (especially if their parents can't afford private tutoring) is real and in order to catch up from Realschule you basically need to put in twice the effort because you need to compensate for the parts of the curriculum you missed out on in addition to learning the new stuff. If you end up in Hauptschule, being able to switch to Realschule is usually the best you can hope for in order to dodge the stigma. And of course Lord help you if you have any kind of special needs or neurodivergence unless you luck into going to the rare "integrated" school that doesn't carry the "special education" stigma.

Basically the three tier system doesn't exist to match different support needs, it exists to lower expectations based on what you can achieve without your support needs being met. Hauptschule simply won't teach you the full curriculum you'd get at a Realschule or Gymnasium and hopefully that's enough for you to achieve good grades. The German school system is only "egalitarian" in the sense that it doesn't boost those who can't pass the bar but instead lowers it for them until graduation and then sends them to compete with the rest on an "equal playing field" but with none of the prep.

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