Educational standards
In October 1997, in a decision known as the Konstanzer Beschluss, the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany ruled that the German school system should participate in academic studies designed to compare its outputs at the international level. The aim of the comparisons is to obtain validated findings on students’ strengths and weaknesses in key content areas. Germany has been regularly participating in international student assessments (PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS) since the mid-1990s.
Past results of international comparisons indicate that the prevailing tendency of the German school system to steer student performance based on curricula alone (input-focused approach) was not achieving the desired results. Therefore, a reform process was introduced that aimed to shift the focus onto the effects and results of educational processes (output-focused approach). This involves setting and monitoring binding targets for competencies that students are expected to achieve. The Standing Conference thus began dedicating much of its work in the early 2000s to drawing up and rolling out national educational standards. The standards are intended to help improve and assure the quality of the German education system.
Educational standards set out pedagogical goals in the form of desired learning outcomes. They specify the competencies that children and young people should have developed in a given subject by a certain point in their school career. A competency is defined as a student’s ability to apply his/her knowledge and skills to solving problems in the subject at hand.
The Standing Conference’s educational standards aim to orient teaching and learning processes towards an ongoing, networked development of core competencies that are important for both current and future educational processes. They are also designed to help ensure that the country’s different educational pathways are permeable and that leaving certificates are comparable. Combined with measures to help schools implement them, the standards lay the foundations for a systematic development of the German educational system.
In December 2003, the Standing Conference adopted the standards in German, mathematics and the first foreign language (English/French) for the intermediate secondary school leaving certificate. This was followed in October 2004 by the adoption of standards in German, mathematics and the first foreign language for the lower secondary school leaving certificate, and by standards in German and mathematics for primary schools. Standards in science (biology, chemistry, and physics) for the intermediate certificate were adopted in December 2004. All 16 states in the Federal Republic of Germany were required to introduce the standards at the start of the 2004/2005 and 2005/2006 school years.
On 18 October 2012, during its 339th session, the Standing Conference adopted educational standards in German, mathematics and the first foreign language (English/French) for the general higher education entrance qualification (Abitur).
One of the IQB’s main tasks is to develop test items based on the educational standards for primary schools and secondary level I, and to review the extent to which students are achieving the desired proficiency levels.