The Tripartite School System

[ProHypster]

Only Germany has it.

People are divided into three schools after grade 5 according to the grades.

 

The German tripartite system of education has been widely criticized for separating children along class lines at a very early age. For instance, in some German states, a decision is made in the sixth or even the fourth grade about whether a child is to continue in the Gymnasium, the Realschule, or the Hauptschule. Only the Gymnasium is a university-preparatory school, so critics argue essentially a decision is made as early as the fourth grade about whether a child will be allowed to attend college.

 

I myself was divided this way and got sent to a Gymnasium, I spent nearly 2 years there before moving..

How it works is, according to your grades you can move up or down in the gymnasium, realschule or hauptschule. Haupt is the lowest school and Gymnasium the highest, Realschule mostly concentrates on teaching subjects for mediocore technical work.. like electricians, some engineers etc etc.

 

I have to say in the gymnasium all the classmates were decently smart and subjects were very interesting, among some aspects there was a lab with animals in the school, the biology class was as big as a university one, there was mandatory latin, french and english, Social Sciences, History of the world, religion, oh and we were sent to France a bunch of times as exchange students..... however most people in the school were completely racist (especially towards one race I'm not going to mention for some reason) but I think that's a seperate discussion.

 

Anyway, germany is under pressure to remove this sytem since noone else has it.

What do you think of this?

[Kirkreng]

Well, can you jump from Gymnasium to realschule/hauptshule and vice versa?

 

On a side note, I was supposed to go to Gymnasium to but moved to the Netherlands right before :/

[ProHypster]

Well yes, I stated that:

 

How it works is, according to your grades you can move up or down in the gymnasium, realschule or hauptschule

 

However to jump up is pretty difficult, marks have to be very high as far as I know. And from Hauptschule you would have to waste two years to jump up to the gymnasium, using realschule as a transition year.

[Kirkreng]

Well I guess I see why they want to get rid of the system than. Because people can change their work attitude over time(and most of the time it is the attitude and not the brain power).

[Ian]

That is a bit early in someone's learning career to make that decision for them. Most people here decide whether they are aiming for college by age fourteen. This system isn't anywhere near as ridiculous as Japan's, though.