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Comment by josefx | Hacker News Reader

> In Germany only about 30% of high-school kids qualify academic high-school (merit-based) and are eligible to apply for university

Overall 50% of the population are eligible to apply for university since completing higher tier education at a vocational school or completing specialized courses at "lesser" schools can also fullfill the acceptance requirements for related fields of study.

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There are additional paths people can beyond high schools and we have different tiers (allgemeine Hochschulreife; Fachhochschulreife) for different tiers of universities (academic further qualifying for a PhD career / practitioner); as the original post was referring to Chinese high school students specifically I tied it back to Gymnasium where give or take 30% of students go (probably a tad higher today because they lowered the bar).

There isn't a significant division between a a Gymnasium and Fachoberschule, because a Fachoberschule student can choose to get an Arbitur as well via an optional 13th year. And because German universities are de facto open entry, an Arbitur is all you need to be admitted.

China's vocational high schools on the other hand don't open the same doors to tertiary education that a Fachoberschule student has because they are structurally segregated away from academic students.

Abitur is 30% of students roughly which was the point of my discussion: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiturientenquote

This should include the students who do Abitur via FOS.

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