Central Abitur

Germany’s federal states, or Länder, have authority over their internal education systems. For decades, major differences in quality and a lack of comparability among those systems have been a major nuisance to exit exam pupils, universities, and companies. There is also no quality assurance in place. 

A Common Core Exit Exam, Not a Standard Central One

Back in 2011, Aktionsrat Bildung published the concept of a “standard core exit exam.” The concept did not aim to initiate a comprehensive central exam; such a plan seemed neither achievable nor desirable given the cultural sovereignty of the Länder. Instead, the proposal was for the exam to cover a mandatory core of subjects and topics. Over the long term, this approach would set national educational standards in the subjects deemed crucial to preparing for higher education – German, math, and English – while also maintaining the states’ freedom to organize their own systems. The main points of the concept are to safeguard the high quality of the test for the long term and offer all students an equal opportunity to successfully complete a university education. 

What Is a Core Exit Exam?

At the heart of the concept is the goal of ensuring that a pupil’s competence in central subjects can be uniformly tested by an external body. The common components of the exam should make up a significant portion of the overall exit examination. This is the only way to produce a minimum degree of comparability at the national level. It increases the fairness of access to higher education and, at the local school level, creates incentives that play a crucial role in the school system’s quality assurance. A nationwide exit exam component should comprise a total of 10 percent of the overall qualification. Given three common core subjects, it follows that 30 percent of the exam’s possible points will be tested and evaluated in a standard way across Germany. 

Next Steps and Obstacles

In 2007, the Länder reached an agreement on developing national standards in the three subjects to be tested. As of the 2012/2013 school year, the standards are binding in German, math, English, and also in French. Then in 2017, (nearly) all the Länder agreed to hold their exit exams in math on the same day, with standard-based exam problems drawn from a common pool of questions. Introducing the common core exit exam could ensure the systematic implementation of the national education standards as agreed. The public would be thrilled with such a development: according to the ifo Education Barometer in 2017 and 2018, 90 percent of Germans are in favor of rolling out uniform exit exams across the country. 

At the conference of German state education ministers in 2018, the participants approved a reform plan intended to increase the comparability among the various Länder education policies. The coalition agreement of the federal government has also placed the call for more transparency, quality, and comparability at the top of its education agenda. Plans for a national education council, however, have failed due to the familiar tug-of-war between federal and state officials. 

The concept developed by Aktionsrat Bildung, Ludger Wößmann, and other authors aims at a new education agreement among the Länder. This agreement must contain the proposed elements of a common core exit exam. Only when uniform tests evaluate what pupils have learned across Germany will the non-binding nature of standards give way to a fixed goal that teachers and pupils alike have to prepare for, and in all Länder.