Germany After the PISA Shock: An Empirical Analysis of Reforms to Secondary Education

Abstract

Following the reveal of PISA test results in 2001, Germany has made many attempts to reform their secondary education system. With a push to decrease the socioeconomic gap and improve educational success, many German states began to implement comprehensive schools in place of the traditional three-tiered system. I run three different OLS regressions using micro-data from various sources to test the effect of each school type, with an emphasis on Gesamtschule, on success in higher education. I find that Gesamtschule enrollment is associated with a 0.8 percentage point average increase in higher education exam passage rates from 1999-2017 and a 0.07% increase in higher education degrees obtained. Gesamtschule had a positive overall effect on students who were on the verge of passing or failing exams, but not to the extent that Realschule did. However, when compared to Realschule, Gesamtschule appears to have increased the number of total students attending higher education institutes significantly more. Throughout all three models, Hauptschule is shown to have a negative effect on success in higher education. This leads me to the conclusion that a two-tiered system or an increase in Gesamtschulen would be the best methods of reaching Germany’s educational goals.