The Bigger Story over Education Numbers

Two odd statistics got dropped this week into the middle of the news.

First, it's been reported by the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DIHK)....that a lot more kids are enrolled in university programs today....than eight years ago (360,000 in 2005 to 500,000 in 2013).  The hint was....German kids....but as you read deeper into this blog....you will come to a different view.  

You can figure from a country of roughly eighty million residents.....it's a fair sum.  From the US....considering two-year and four-year programs....public and private....it's around seventeen million kids enrolled in roughly four thousand type schools across the US.

But the jump here is what got the Chamber folks a bit worried.

You see....as the second part of this statistics episode....they came to realize that apprentice training dropped from 330,000 to 315,000.  It's a slight trend that makes folks look at the future.

Germany has been in a locked-in and concrete mindset for generations....over practical knowledge needed for the majority of jobs in the country.  To admit this huge increase and how it plays out....is a big deal.  You don't want some kid standing there in 2020 with a university degree, and his chief daily work is collecting statistics over usage of water in one town, compared to another.  It's the kind of work that a high school diploma kid....could easily do with minimum apprentice training (not university work).

Well....but then you start to ask stupid questions.  Like...how many foreign students hang out in Germany.  The answer?  Around 2011....the German government came to admit that roughly eleven percent of the university population.....are non-Germans.  This group includes Chinese, American, Austrian, Swiss, French, Russian, etc.

In 2011 alone....there were 22,828 Chinese students (DAAD numbers) in the German system.

Adding to the mix....China admits they have roughly 36,000 Chinese students enrolled in German language programs spread through at least ninety-six Chinese universites.  The eventual step for a number of these students?  They will likely get their four-year degree in China....get sponsorship for a masters and possible PhD at a German university.

The numbers that the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry worries about.....might not be a true picture.  This huge increase in college enrollment?  The bulk might just be all foreign students.  The decrease in the apprentice training program?  It might relate finally to a declining German population.

Numbers often tell a story....but the story might be bigger and more diverse than you'd like to think.