PISA

My late wife and her Golf

In Germany, golf isn't as popular a sport as it is in English-speaking countries. That's why Germans rather associate golf with the once-successful VW model series. Consequently, in my country, Generation X (1965–1980) is also known as the Golf Generation.

On our honeymoon at the Adria in Primosten, Yugoslavia, in 1965

Red Baron is of an earlier origin and belongs to the Beetle Generation, even though he is classified internationally as part of the Silent Generation (1928–1945).

But I digress. My point is that I no longer associate Pisa with the Leaning Tower, but rather with the "leaning" state of school education in Germany.

In fact, PISA stands for "Program for International Student Assessment." It is an international study conducted by the OECD that has been regularly assessing, since 2000, how well 15-year-old students can apply basic knowledge and skills.

The focus of the study is on:
📖 Reading literacy
➗ Mathematics
🔬 Science

So, PISA doesn't measure memorized school knowledge but rather whether young people can apply what they have learned to practical and new situations.

In Germany, "PISA shock" refers to the major public debate that followed the first PISA study in 2000, when German students performed surprisingly poorly in the international comparison.

Can German students still fall deeper?

Since then, some progress has been made, until the recent PISA study revealed alarming findings again.

OECD average: 469 All, 482 Science, 461 Reading, and 463 Mathematics

In the rankings, Far Eastern countries lead the way, and in Europe, Estonia - the country with the best IT infrastructure - tops the list.

Germany ranks 25th, right at the average performance level. Immediately, spin doctors rush to emphasize that our students are, after all, above the average of all OECD countries in every category.

It is cold comfort that European countries like Denmark and France fared even worse.

The U.S., ranked 16th, is in the red zone in math - one point behind Germany - but is only marginally worse than the average.

The decline in student performance is global. On average across the OECD, scores have fallen by 22 points in mathematics since 2015 and by 28 points in reading. Reading is more demanding than watching memes on the Internet.

The measured declines are equivalent to a lag of more than one school year. Currently, 20 percent of students in the OECD region are considered low achievers in all three assessment areas and lack the basic skills needed for success in further education, professional life, and everyday life. 

In Germany, one in three adolescents does not meet the minimum proficiency level in math and reading. These students struggle to understand everyday texts or solve simple math problems. Since 2015, the proportion of low-performing students has risen by 17 percentage points in math, by 15 in reading, and by 10 in the sciences. About one-fifth of young people lack sufficient basic skills in all three areas.

At the other end of the spectrum, the proportion of students with particularly high proficiency in the sciences has decreased slightly since 2015, from 11 to 9 percent. In math and reading, it has declined more sharply, from 13 to 8 percent and from 12 to 7 percent, respectively. The correlation between skills and socioeconomic status is now at its highest level since the PISA studies began. Only 2 percent of students from socioeconomically disadvantaged families achieve high proficiency levels.

In Germany, all efforts to close the gap between a family's socioeconomic status and children's educational success failed. Instead, the achievement gap in science between the top and bottom 25 percent of the socioeconomic distribution even widened between 2015 and 2025, while it narrowed on average across the OECD. The family home plays an important role in children's learning. The educated middle class highly values a good education for their children.

I have a nightmare.

In ten years, today's Chinese students - who are well-educated in STEM subjects - will be celebrating their first research findings, while their long-time studying German counterparts will be - à la recherche du temps perdu - starting their 15th semester in the social sciences. If, contrary to expectations, they managed to complete their studies, they'll flood the job market in search of a "suitable" occupation and ultimately end up, utterly frustrated, as taxi drivers.

All that's left for Red Baron to do is lament, along with Adenauer, "Mein Gott, was soll aus Deutschland werden?"

The famous sentence "My God, what will become of Germany?" fell not quite on September 28, 1954, on the first day of the Nine-Power Conference in London. Adenauer was at Claridge's Hotel in London, where he spoke in German with Luxembourg's Foreign Minister, Joseph Bech, and Belgium's Foreign Minister, Paul-Henri Spaak.

In August 1954, the French National Assembly had rejected the European Defense Community Treaty. This jeopardized Adenauer's plan to integrate the Federal Republic into a European defense structure rather than build an independent German army, which he feared.

At the time, Adenauer served as chancellor and foreign minister in a dual role. So he said to his Belgian and Luxembourgian colleagues, "I am firmly convinced that a German national army will become a great danger to Germany and Europe - once I am no longer here, I do not know what will become of Germany if we do not succeed in creating Europe in time."

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