The Education Story

This is one of those odd German statistics that I point out as having changed the landscape a great deal.

Back in 1970 (25 years after WW II)....roughly eighty-eight percent of German kids finished Haupschulabschluss.  This was basically the 10th grade, and your entry point into a skill-craft or apprentice deal.  In  that same year, roughly ten-percent of German kids finished Mittlere Reife, which was the 10th grade but designed more for achiever-type kids.....meaning that they went on to technical type skills, or more intense skill-craft areas.  Some of these Mittlere Reife kids would go onto Abitur, which was the path-door into college or university.  In terms of pure Abitur-school kids in 1970s graduating?  It was 1.4-percent. 

What you can take out of 1970 was that most kids were going for the bottom-level craft or skill type situation.

By 1980....things had changed. 

The Haupschulabschulss kids had dropped down to 79-percent (9-point drop).  The middle school kids or the Mittlere Reife kids?  They had increased to 17.7-percent...fairly dramatic jump (figure fifty-percent minimum).  Then you come to the Abi-kids, who had doubled in one decade to almost 3-percent. 

By 1990....things had changed even more.

There was a 13-point drop for the lower school kids....the Haupschulabschulss kids were now in the 66.5-percent range.  In the middle school group in Mittlere Reife?  They had grown yet again....adding ten points to 27-percent.  The smarter kids in the Abi-path?  6.5-percent....basically doubling again in one decade.

So you come to 2000.

Around 55-percent of German kids went to the lower school of the Haupschulabschulss route.  The middle school route?  They had gone to 34-percent.  And the university-bound kids in the prep-school environment of the Abi-system?  They had gone to 11-percent.

All of this presents an interesting twist to the job market because almost half the kids are now in the middle or higher school patterns.  For the lower-job fields or careers?  It was apparent already in 2000 that there was a serious problem approaching with not that many kids entering the 'nuts and bolt' traditional job fields which require minimum education.

So on this list of twenty reasons to favor an open door for immigrates and migrants....this shift by German teens back twenty years ago.....triggered this belief that you needed some more folks to enter, who weren't all that hyped up for higher education.  They would fill the lesser jobs.

I know it sounds stupid to suggest this type of view with this logic, but go talk to grocery stores who need just some minimally educated guy to stock shelves, or the wait to serve tables at some bar.