Report: Germany Fails To Meet Educational Standards

According to the second report published by UNESCO's Education For All program, education in Germany is in a perilous state and falls short of four of six targets laid out in the "Dakar Framework for Action" agenda drawn up by the World Education Forum in 2000. The report said that problems include the absence of organized pre-school learning, which puts children from socially deprived or immigrant families at a disadvantage, ill-prepared teachers insufficiently trained to cope with the problems linked to a high percentage of immigrant pupils, as well as out-of-date learning material and teaching methods. UNESCO has also established that one-quarter of German pupils risk growing up unable to read and write, and points out that Germany's 7 million functioning illiterates have no chance of participating in today's information society. The report concluded that the German education system fails to offer young people equal opportunities.