The secondary education system in Germany is compulsory from 12 to 13. As Germany is a federal country, the legislative power of the education system belongs to each state, so the forms of running secondary education in Germany are not exactly the same in each federal state. Students do not need to take a unified exam to enter middle school. According to the grades of primary schools (including orientation stage), teachers' appraisal and parents' opinions, decide which type of middle school to enter.

Middle schools in Germany

Secondary education in Germany is divided into two levels. The first level includes senior middle schools, general middle schools, senior middle schools and general middle schools. The second level of advancement can also be called "Oberstufe", which mainly includes the dual system of vocational education system and the senior grades of liberal arts middle schools. In Germany, junior high school education is divided from the fifth grade, and students enter different levels of schools. On the positive side, we can carry out targeted teaching, so as to achieve better teaching results; On the negative side, it will be a psychological blow to divide students into different grades and treat them differently from childhood.

The first initial stage

1) Students with good grades generally choose liberal arts high school for about nine years, which is the only way to enter higher education. Abitur is common in every federal state, and the senior department of liberal arts high school has the nature of pre-university. Its compulsory courses and elective courses are divided into two categories: Grundkurs and Leistungskurs. Compulsory courses are divided into language, literature, art, social science, mathematics and science, religion, physical education and so on. Elective courses are usually basic courses or introductory courses in various disciplines in universities. Students must take more than two specialized courses, one of which must be Chinese, mathematics or natural science. Subject 4 of the senior high school entrance examination requires two professional courses plus two basic courses. In addition, in order to expand the scope and depth of elective courses, courses such as psychology, law, sociology and economics have been added.

2) Students with the second best grades often enter practical middle schools, with courses lasting about five to six years. Practical middle schools were established by imitating Prussian middle schools and came into being to meet the needs of higher vocational education. Moreover, practical middle schools have always been a model in the German education system, and the educational effect is very good. The background of its students is mainly the social middle class, and its success factors are based on two aspects: on the one hand, the teaching content of practical middle schools attaches importance to the social background of Germany's transformation to the tertiary industry; On the other hand, students who graduate from this course can get an intermediate diploma, and there are many possibilities for choosing development: they can choose higher career development; You can also pursue further studies, such as entering a vocational-oriented liberal arts middle school, so as to move towards the higher education system. Therefore, practical middle school is a successful school type in German education system. The school focuses on cultivating practical talents in the industrial and commercial circles and government agencies. Its courses are mainly social science, natural science and language, with special emphasis on the practicality of the subjects. The required parts can be summarized into the following five categories: 1. Foreign language (usually English); 2. Natural science (mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology); 3. Social sciences (history, economy, geography); 4. housekeeping; 5. The art of music. There are elective courses in the seventh grade, such as nature, handicrafts and a second foreign language (usually French). Students can choose two or three compulsory subjects to take the final exam; Most graduates will choose to continue to receive full-time higher vocational and technical education, and a few will receive vocational training.

3) Students who have achieved Grade II will be enrolled in the five-year vocational preparatory course. Their courses are relatively simple, including religion, German, geography, history, music, science and technology, economy, English, mathematics, physics and chemistry, biology and physical education. Most graduates continue to enter the dual vocational education system and complete apprenticeship training, mainly engaged in handicrafts and manufacturing. Not all children in Germany are willing to go to college, because there is a saying in Germany called seniority. Many children who have been in middle school for ten years have graduated from vocational schools early, and what they have learned is very practical and theoretical, so they enter social work as soon as possible. Maybe a few years later, the salary and development prospects of college graduates are the same. People who come out of nine-year schools may not be despised, and they can have a good job with skills and practicality. German universities learn very academic and theoretical things and rarely practice books. Sometimes they may not find a good job (such as sociology or even philosophy) because of their lack of social practice ability.

4) In addition, some states set up a comprehensive high school (Gesamtschule), which is a combination of the above three traditional school types, usually including grade 5 or grade 7- 10. Some comprehensive schools also set up high schools, similar to liberal arts middle schools. Comprehensive schools implement the principle of teaching students in accordance with their aptitude. Students can choose higher or simpler courses according to their abilities, and the syllabus also includes courses in vocational education. All states in the Federation recognize the graduation qualification of comprehensive schools. In recent years, comprehensive schools have been welcomed by students and parents because of their flexible educational organization, and become the second pillar of German school education system besides liberal arts middle schools. Comprehensive middle schools are established on the basis of "equal opportunities". I hope that all students with poor grades will not lose better learning opportunities because of their poor grades in some subjects. They can develop according to their personal preferences and interests, and will not lose better development because of their own weakness like the social elimination mechanism. But opponents criticize it from the practical level: too many school categories are very rare in industrialized countries; On the other hand, the competitiveness of comprehensive middle school students is also challenged. Comprehensive middle schools are mainly divided into two categories: integrated comprehensive middle schools with completely integrated students and no grade grouping; The other is Concord Middle School, kooperativenGesamtschulen. In this kind of school, students in certain subjects must be grouped according to their grades.

Second advanced stage

1) Senior Grade of Liberal Arts Middle School

Starting from 1 1 grade, it takes two to three years to enter the senior stage of liberal arts middle school according to the regulations of each state. The teaching method at this stage is the credit system, that is, students can freely choose courses and key disciplines according to their own preferences and development direction as a preparation for entering colleges and universities. Senior students in liberal arts high schools and comprehensive high schools are equally qualified to take the high school graduation examination. In addition, because more and more liberal arts middle school graduates choose to enter the workplace or continue to receive vocational education, many liberal arts high schools have also reformed their teaching subjects to meet the needs of emerging occupations or hot jobs, shortening the years of students' study at school.

2) Vocational schools

The types of vocational education in Germany have different new developments according to the needs of different majors, while the length of compulsory education in Germany is 18 years. Therefore, in order to meet the requirements of various majors in the field of work and compulsory study age, there are many schools established for different situations, such as Berufsschule, Berufsfachschule, fachschule and so on.

In addition, high schools of arts and sciences have also increased various related vocational education to meet the needs of society, such as TechnischesGymnasium, Wirtschaftsgymnasium, Berufsoberschule, which is a high school with science and technology education as the main axis, and so on. High school students who graduate from here can get a high school diploma.

The present situation and characteristics of the examination

First, there are no mid-term and final exams, and there are no mid-term and college entrance examinations.

Compared with China's secondary education, German secondary schools have no mid-term and final exams, and there are no senior high school entrance examinations and college entrance examinations. According to the comprehensive evaluation of four closed-book classroom written assignments, usual classroom questions and tests, the teacher gets the students' semester grades.

However, there are two key examinations in German middle schools, namely, the diploma examination in the form of "comparative examination" and the graduation examination in liberal arts middle schools. The former is conducted in the ninth grade or 10 grade of each middle school, while the latter is conducted in the middle school of arts and sciences 13 grade and the middle school of arts and sciences 12 grade. Abitur test scores of all schools are nationally recognized. Compared with other European countries, Germany's secondary school graduation exam is a high-level graduation exam, and only graduates who pass the exam are eligible to enter comprehensive universities for further study. The admission of freshmen to colleges and universities shall be subject to the graduation certificate of liberal arts middle school or equivalent academic qualification. Holders have the right to freely choose institutions and majors and are protected by law. The graduation exam is organized by the school itself.

For the above two kinds of examinations in German secondary schools, each school proposes its own questions according to the syllabus formulated by its federal state, and organizes its own examinations and scores after obtaining the approval of the education authorities. Most students can get diplomas from technical secondary schools. Students who do not enter the advanced stage of liberal arts middle schools will get the same academic qualifications as graduates from main middle schools and practical middle schools. According to statistics, the elimination rate of students from the first stage of junior high schools to the second stage of senior high schools in China is about 20%. The second stage of learning in German liberal arts middle schools is divided into three major areas: language-writing-art, social science, mathematics-natural science-technology. Every student must determine his major according to his own actual situation at the beginning of the new semester of 1 1 grade, and choose the professional combination matched by the school accordingly. And 13 is a stage of continuous learning and improvement. The perfect score of 600 points in these two years should be recorded in the total score of 840 points for middle school graduation. The graduation exam was held last semester and consisted of four parts, including three written exams and 1 entrance exam, with a full score of 60 and a comprehensive score of 240. The examination subjects selected by each graduate must cover the above-mentioned 3] professional fields, and German or a foreign language continuously studied in the first stage of middle school must be listed as examination subjects. In the written test, candidates choose two courses and one course from the ability course and the basic course respectively, while in the oral test, they know the students' real knowledge level mainly by asking questions, accounting for 25% of the graduation test scores.

Second, the problems existing in German middle school examinations lack comparability of teaching quality. For a long time, the monitoring and evaluation of teaching quality in German middle schools have been carried out independently by schools according to their own standards under the supervision and guidance of inspectors, and there is no horizontal comparison of teaching quality between schools and across regions. Germany's educational federalism determines that its secondary education lacks a unified standard and a unified outline. Although every state has made a unified teaching plan, many teachers organize their teaching according to the textbooks designated by each school, and the teaching quality varies greatly between schools.

The grading standards are not comparable. German teachers only use their own classes to evaluate students' grades, and the comparability of students' grades inside and outside the school is very limited. The scoring system in Germany is 1 6, and 1 6 is the worst. A student with the same score will get 2 points in one school, 4 points in another school, and vice versa.

Third, the examination reform in German middle schools.

Since 1990s, the quality and fairness of secondary education have become one of the focuses of German society and the public. People call for breaking down the barriers between different types of middle schools, so that outstanding students from subject middle schools and practical middle schools can flow to liberal arts middle schools more easily; It is believed that the unfairness of graduation examination in liberal arts middle schools is one of the reasons for the unfairness of higher education in Germany, and the unfairness of higher education will further aggravate the unfairness of society. In order to ensure the quality of education and maintain the fairness of education, all walks of life in Germany have discussed the reform of middle school education again and again, calling for a relatively unified middle school diploma examination and liberal arts middle school graduation examination for middle school students. In this regard, schools, students, parents and society all have different views. Conservatives believe that any one-off examination can not fully reflect the real level of students, and the system is naturally an important aspect, but more importantly, the various behaviors in the German education system are not fair enough. Reformists believe that although schools can ensure the quality of teaching by making reasonable teaching plans and choosing suitable teaching materials, the decentralization of evaluation rights affects the final effect. Therefore, a more effective way to ensure the quality of teaching is to implement national or at least federal unified examinations. In this way, not only the students' academic achievements and teachers' teaching achievements are comparable, but also the education level of each state has a relatively objective evaluation method.

1 implement a unified high school examination system in each state. After several years' efforts, the number of federal states in Germany that implement the unified liberal arts secondary school graduation examination has reached 1 1, and the other five federal states will finally implement the unified liberal arts secondary school graduation examination in the next year. That is to say, by 2008, all the federal states in Germany will implement unified examination papers, unified time examinations, and cross-marking and grading between schools.

2 Introducing the unified examination into the first-stage graduation examination of middle schools In recent years, the reform wave of the unified examination of German liberal arts middle schools has also spread to the first-stage graduation examination of middle schools. In this regard, Berlin, the capital of Germany, took the lead in launching the "Secondary School Certificate Examination" this year. The characteristic of this test is that it pays attention to the evaluation of four ability modes in the content and form of the test, namely, professional ability, language ability, method ability and communication ability. The scope of the examination includes the written examination of three compulsory subjects, namely German, Mathematics and English, and the oral examination of an auxiliary subject and English, accounting for 40% of the total English score. The auxiliary subjects are chosen by the students themselves, the written test papers are formulated by the state, and the oral English test and the oral test of any auxiliary subject are formulated by the examination committees of each school. Only students who pass the exam can be promoted to the senior grades of liberal arts middle schools to continue their studies.

According to the figures provided by the German education department, there are nearly10,000 primary and secondary school students in Germany, 9.5% of whom are immigrant children, reaching 970,000. The more advanced the school is, the fewer international students there are. Only 3.9% of foreign students can enter universities directly after graduation, while 6.4% are foreign students in practical middle schools. In ordinary middle schools, foreign students account for 17.3%, and in cities with concentrated immigrants such as Berlin, the proportion of foreign students exceeds 50%. * Analysis shows that Germany's immigration policy has great defects, and the country has been "helpless" to accept immigrants, including a large number of illegal refugees. If you come to middle school, you can better integrate into German society and master German faster. And if you have been in high school for four to five years before you go to college, you will get permanent residency before you go to college. This will be very helpful to your college career. But the premise is that you pass the high school graduation exam (abitur), and the passing standard is that the average score is above 4 points. But if your average score is below 3.5, it is estimated that no university will admit you at that time.