德国教育，尚需努力

How am I doing?
我做得怎么样？

GERMANY invented the modern university but long ago lost its leading position to other countries, especially America. These days the land of poets and thinkers is prouder of its “dual system” for training skilled workers such as bakers and electricians. Teenagers not bound for university apply for places in three-year programmes combining classroom learning with practical experience within companies. The result is superior German quality in haircuts as well as cars. Dual training “is the reason we’re the world export champion”, says Mrs Schavan, the education minister. Azubis (trainees) acquire not just a professional qualification but an identity.

现代意义上的大学最早出现在德国，但其领先地位早已让与了其它国家，尤其是美国。在往昔涌现出大量的诗人和思想家的这片土地上，如今正陶醉于其培训烤面包、修电器等技工的“双元制”教育体系。没有进入大学的青少年可以申请就读于3年制的培训机构。这些机构采用课堂教学与企业的实习教学相结合的教学方式。这种教育体系的结果使德国各行各业的产品——无论是理发还是小轿车，质量全都上乘。教育部长沙范夫人说，双元制“使德国成为世界出口冠军”。学员（德语Azubis）在这里不只是取得了专业资格证书，他们的实际水平也是名符其实的。

But the dual system is under pressure. The number of places offered by companies has long been falling short of the number of applicants. Almost as many youngsters move into a “transitional system”, a grab-bag of remedial education programmes designed to prepare them for the dual system or another qualification. Often it turns out to be a dead end, especially for male immigrants.

但是，双元制也受到了压力。各公司提供的实习岗位名额长期以来一直无法满足要求。大概有同等数量的青少年进入一种过渡性的综合学校学习，这是一种为进入双元制学校或另一种职业资格培训学校而开办的的学前培训机构，是一种成分混杂的教育系统。进入这类学校学习对求学者，特别是国外移民而来的男学生而言常常是死路一条。

And given that Germany produces far fewer university graduates than many comparable countries, some wonder whether the dual system is producing the right qualifications for the knowledge-based professions of the future. “The dual system is for 200 years ago,” says Alexander Kritikos of DIW, a research institute in Berlin. “You have to ask: is it still the right system if we want to be innovative?”

考虑到德国的大学毕业生数量与很多具有可比性的国家相比要少得多，一些人怀疑是否双元制的职业教育体系能够适应未来以知识为主的职业要求。亚历山大•科里提科斯在柏林的德国经济研究所工作，他认为：“双元制的教育体系是为200年前定制的。人们不免要问，如果我们要保持创新能力，这个体系还能适用吗？”

The system is governed by a consortium representing almost everyone who counts: the federal and state governments, the chambers of commerce and the unions. It regulates access to 350 narrowly defined trades. You can train to become a goldsmith, or if you want to manage a McDonald’s you learn Systemgastronomie. Baking bread and pastries are separate disciplines. Schools outside the system may not train Azubis for a reserved trade.

这个体系是几乎由所有相关方共同实施管理，他们是联邦和州政府、商会及工会。通过这个体系控制350个严格定义的职业工种的准入资格。你可以通过培训成为金匠，如果您想要开一家麦当劳快餐店那你得去学习餐饮系统。烤面包与制作糕点分属不同的专业。这个体系之外的学校没有资格为学生们提供这种特定的职业培训。

It makes sense to combine theory and practice, says Heike Solga of the Social Science Research Centre in Berlin, but the dual system is rigid and discriminatory. And because the trades are so specialised, getting a job at the end can be hard. In 2005 more than a third of graduates were unemployed a year after completing their course. Ms Solga thinks the number of trades should be greatly reduced, the early stages of training made more general to make switching easier, and the right to train Azubis opened up to a wider range of schools. “It should not be about where you learn but what you can do,” she says.

海克•索尔加在位于柏林的社会科学研究中心工作，她认为：理论与实践相结合的教学方式是有道理的，但双元制僵化且带有歧视性。由于专业岗位划分过细，导致找到一份工作很难。2005年，超过三分之一完成了学业的毕业生有一年以上的时间找不到工作。索尔加女士认为专业工种的数量应大幅削减，初期阶段的培训专业不要分得太细，这使学生调换专业更容易一些；应该开放职业培训，给予更多的学校办学权。她说：“考查一个学生的水平不应该看他是在哪所学校毕业的，而应看他会做些什么”。

Once a scholar, always a scholar
一次选拔定终生

The type of secondary school a German attends, the degree he obtains and the exams he passes classify him for life. The distinctions are made earlier and more rigidly than in other countries. “Nowhere are credentials as important as in Germany,” says Stefan Hradil, a sociologist at the University of Mainz.

在德国，上哪类中学，通过了哪些课程和考试分数如何，他的一生就由此被划定了。与其它国家相比，这种划分实施的早，且更严格。美因茨大学的社会学家斯特凡•贺拉迪说“在德国，职业资格证书的重要性超过世界其它任何地方”。

Many children are typecast at age ten, which is when most German states decide which of three kinds of secondary school he or she will attend. Traditionally the Hauptschulen, the lowest tier, were the main suppliers of recruits to the dual training system, but they gradually became dumping grounds for children who could not keep up. Upon leaving (sometimes without passing the final exam), nearly 40% of these students find themselves in the precarious transitional system. The dual system now draws its intake mainly from the middle-grade Realschulen, the traditional training ground for white-collar workers, and even Gymnasien (grammar schools), the main route to university.

许多儿童在10岁时才能确定性格，而此时德国的大多数州就要决定这些孩子进入3类中学的哪一类了。传统上，普通中学(Hauptschulen)居于最底层，是双元制职业学校新生的主要来源，但普通中学逐渐成了倾倒学业一般的孩子们的垃圾场，办学水平堪忧。普通中学毕业的学生（有些学生甚至没有通过毕业考试）有近40％进入毫无保障的的综合学校学习。双元制职业学校的新生现在主要来自居于中间层次的实科中学（Realschulen），也有少量新生是来自居于顶层的文理中学（Gymnasien）。实科中学的目标是培养白领工人，文理中学则是进入大学的主要途径。

The state bureaucracy acknowledges four career paths: the simple, middle, elevated and higher services. Bureaucrats in one category can rarely aspire to careers in a higher one. Teachers in Gymnasien enjoy a higher status than those at other schools. and have their own trade union, the grandly named Philologenverband. A Meisterbrief, the highest vocational credential, is not just a badge of competence but in some trades a keep-off sign to competitors.

政府的官僚体制承认存在四种职业生涯：普通、中级，高级和最高级。处于底层的官员们也很少渴望能够攀上更高的层次。文理中学的教师享有比其它学校更高的地位，并拥有自己名称堂皇的工会——语言学者学会（Philologenverband）。行业技师证（Meisterbrief）是最高等级的职业资格证书，它不仅是一枚证明技能的徽章，而且在一些行业还能起到让对手望而却步的作用。

Germans are now asking themselves whether this way of doing things is fair, and whether it is working. Although income is distributed relatively equally, opportunity is not. “Germany is one of the most rigid among the relatively advanced societies,” says Karl Ulrich Mayer, a sociologist at Yale University.

德国人现在正在自省：如此行事是否公平？等级森严的规则现在是否还行之有效？德国虽然收入分配较为公平，但提供给每个人的机会并不平等。耶鲁大学的社会学家卡尔•乌尔里希•迈耶评论说：“德国是比较先进的社会中最刻板的一个”。

Germans remember the economic miracle years of the 1950s and 1960s nostalgically as the era of the “rising generation”. But that growth lifted everyone without changing their relative positions much. And with inequality rising, that rigidity seems less acceptable. Renate Köcher of Allensbach, a polling firm, says that lower-class Germans are afflicted with “status fatalism”, hopelessness about prospects for improvement for them and their children.

德国人还记得上世纪50和60年代创造了经济奇迹的美好时光，恋恋地将之称为“年轻人火红的年代”。这一时期虽然每个人的生活都改善了，但相对的社会位置并没有多大改变。由于不平等的因素越来越大，这种刻板的等级制度难以让人接受。阿伦斯巴赫是一家民意调查公司，该公司的雷拿特•科克说，底层社会的德国人饱受“身份宿命论”的折磨，对改善他们及其子女地位的前景不抱希望。

Teenagers’ performance in international tests is more strongly correlated with family background than in almost any other country, says Ludger Woessmann of Ifo, a research institute in Munich. Even with the same marks, a child whose parents went to university is four times as likely to attend a Gymnasium as one born into a working-class family.

位于慕尼黑的德国经济信息研究所(Ifo)的卢德格尔•沃斯曼因（Ludger Woessmann）指出，与几乎其它任何国家相比，德国青少年在国际竞赛中的表现与其家庭背景的关系都更大一些。即使取得相同的分数，父母上过大学的孩子进入文理中学的概率大概是工农家庭的孩子的4倍。

But social exclusiveness has not produced excellence. The 2001 “PISA shock”—a set of OECD figures which revealed that German 15-year-olds scored in the bottom third among schoolchildren from 32 countries in tests of reading and maths—has not worn off. Overall, Germany’s performance remains mediocre. More than a fifth of 15-year-olds cannot read or calculate properly; 8% of teenagers drop out of school.

但等级森严的社会制度并没有产生优秀的人才。2001年经合组织国际学生评估项目（PISA)的一组数据显示，在有32个国家的学生参加的15岁组阅读能力和数学水平的测验中，德国学生的分数位居最末的三个国家之一，这场"PISA冲击波"造成的影响到现在依然没有消失。总体而言，德国学生的表现平庸。超过五分之一的15岁学生不能正确地阅读和计算，有8％的青少年辍学。

A war of ideologies
一场意识形态的战争

There is “no consensus on the content and goals of education”, says Mrs Schavan. The arguments extend from primary schools to universities and are as much about tradition and status as about learning. Many Germans are loth to scrap a system so closely identified with the country’s economic and cultural success.
沙范夫人说：“教育的内容和目标没有共识”。这方面的争论由小学一直延伸到大学，对教育的传统和地位的争论也同样激烈。许多德国人实在不愿意抛弃这样一个与德国的经济和文化成就密切相关的教育制度。

A controversy now raging in Hamburg, a port city and one of Germany’s smallest states, illustrates the strife. In 2008 the Christian Democrats, normally champions of the three-tier high-school system, formed their first state-level coalition with the left-leaning Green Party. The Greens won agreement for a radical school reform, mainly by extending primary schooling (and thus shortening secondary schooling) by two years. The idea was that if streaming children by ability is done later, the slower ones will have a better chance of doing well and the brighter ones will at least fare no worse.

汉堡是一个港口城市，也是德国最小的州之一，最近在这里爆发了公开的论战，表明这场认识上的冲突有多么激烈。2008年，三级中学制的传统捍卫者——基督教民主联盟与左倾的绿党第一次结成了州一级的同盟。基民盟作出让步，同意绿党进行激进的学校制度改革的意见，主要内容是小学的学年延长两年（因而缩短了中学阶段的教学）。其出发点是，如果按少儿的能力进行分流能进行得晚一点的话，晚成的孩子将有更多的时间赶上来，而天资聪慧的孩子并不会因此而耽误了前程。

Middle-class parents of Gymnasium-bound children rebelled. The “Gucci protesters” collected more than enough signatures to get the reform put to a referendum. The parents fear that their children will be dragged down by academic laggards in the name of social justice, although such evidence as is available points in the opposite direction. The rebellion evokes wider sympathy. In conservatives’ eyes, Hamburg’s government is laying siege to a noble and ambitious idea of education that is still possible within the state school system.

本来毫无疑问能进入文理中学的来自中产阶级家庭的孩子们的父母炸窝了。这些“古奇抗议者”们征集到足够多的支持签名，使这项改革的实施必须付诸全民公决。父母们担心自己的孩子会在社会公正的名义下受拖累而导致学业落后，但现有的证据都是支持相反的观点。这场造反唤起了广泛的同情。在持保守观点的人看来，汉堡州政府正在努力追求一种高贵而且雄心勃勃的教育理念，在目前的州立学校体制下仍是有可能实现这一目标的。

Almost any education reform offends somebody. In a move to strengthen federalism in 2006, the federal government was banned from investing in areas reserved for the 16 states (including education), which makes serious reform even harder. But the immovable object is being battered by irresistible forces, including demographic change and the demands of the economy. Progress is halting but the direction is fairly clear: the system is being streamlined, schools are being made more accountable and the hierarchy is becoming less rigid. As with so many things in Germany, change proceeds by sleight of hand.

几乎所有的教育改革都必然会冒犯一些人的利益。2006年，在强化联邦制的浪潮中，联邦政府禁止向16个州自行管理的领域（包括教育）进行投资，使得实施重大的改革愈发困难。但是，看似固若金汤的顽固堡垒正被人口构成变化和经济发展需求等不可抗拒的力量冲击的七零八落，摇摇欲坠。改革的进程是蹒跚的，但其方向相当明确：精简教育体系，提高办学效率；学校承担更大的责任，学校的分级制有更多的灵活性。如同在德国发生的很多事情一样，需要巧妙的手法来推进这场变革。

The 2001 PISA results, which not only compared Germany with other countries but individual German states with each other, put state education ministers under pressure. The states that performed worst narrowed the gap with the best performers by half within six years, says Mr Woessmann. Both states and the federal government are sharpening their instruments for measuring schools’ performance. Starting in 2005, the states for the first time submitted to binding quality standards for secondary schools. “For Germany this is a paradigm shift,” says Jürgen Baumert, head of the Max-Planck-Institute for Human Development in Berlin.

2001年PISA得出的学生成绩，不仅将德国与其它国家进行比较，而且在德国的各州间相互进行比较， 使各州的教育部长倍感压力。沃斯曼因先生说，学生成绩最差的州与成绩最好的州间的差距在6年的时间内就缩小了一半。联邦和州政府都磨刀霍霍，睁大眼睛盯着学校的表现。从2005年开始，各州政府第一次在中学推行强制性的质量标准。马克斯-普朗克人类发展研究所座落在柏林，该所的所长约根•鲍默特说：“对于德国这是一个有示范意义的转变”。

Paradigms in the way schools are managed do not suddenly shift, but they do evolve. School leaders in some states are gaining a modicum of autonomy, including the freedom to choose their own teachers. Though half-day schools are still the norm, the proportion offering an afternoon programme of some sort doubled between 2002 and 2006.

其示范性体现在学校的管理方式不会发生突然改变，而是推行一种渐进式改革。在一些州，学校领导也被赋予了些许的自主权，包括自主选择本校的教师。虽然半日制学校仍然是主流，但2002至2006年间以某种形式进行下午教学的学校增加了一倍。

The three classic tiers are coalescing into two, as is happening in Hamburg and in Schleswig-Holstein, partly because the number of children is shrinking. All Hamburg’s second-tier schools will offer the Abitur. North Rhine-Westphalia’s CDU-FDP government last year enacted a law requiring teachers in lower-tier schools to be trained to the same standard as Gymnasium teachers.

正如出现在汉堡和石勒苏益格-荷尔斯泰因州的情况一样，标准的三级学校制被压缩成两级，其部分原因是青少年的人数正在减少。汉堡所有二级制中学校毕业的学生都可以获得上大学的资格。北莱茵-威斯特法伦州的基民盟和自民党政府去年颁布了一项法律要求在普通中学任教的教师必须接受与文理学校的教师相同的培训标准。

With the number of young people shrinking and the demand for skills rising, states are making it easier for dual trainees to get bachelor’s degrees, eroding the caste distinction between vocational and university training. BMW now sends a quarter of its apprentices to universities of applied science, the practice-oriented junior siblings of traditional universities, which account for about a quarter of students in higher education. More than 40% of the students at such universities come from schools other than Gymnasien.

随着青少年人口的不断下降和对拥有职业技能的劳动力的需求不断上升，各州正在制定措施降低双元制学校的学生获得学士学位的难度，弱化职业学院和正规大学培训的严格区别。宝马公司现在将1/4的学徒送到开办应用科学专业的大学去学习。这类以实际应用为导向的专业类似于传统大学的初级程度（学制较短），读这类专业的学生约占高校学生的四分之一。这类专业的大学新生有40％以上来自普通中学而非文理中学。

The universities are embroiled in a row of their own. They have given up the revered Diplom to comply with Europe’s Bologna process, which mandates (mostly shorter) bachelor’s and master’s degrees. This is meant to make the German system compatible with others in Europe (and encourage students to move around), and to award more useful degrees. Hard-core traditionalists oppose the reform in principle, but the main objections are its sometimes sloppy implementation and the scant resources available to universities in general.

各大学也逐一卷入了这场变革风潮。这些大学放弃了其高贵的学位制度，按照欧洲博洛尼亚进程的规定对毕业生授予学士和硕士学位（学制一般较短）。这样做的目的是为了使德国的高教系统与欧洲其它国家相一致，鼓励各国的学生相互流动，将学位授予倾向于应用型专业。传统观念的铁杆捍卫者们原则上反对这场变革，但反对的主要是改革后一些大学放松了管理和大学（扩招后）引起了普遍性的教学资源缺乏。

Too much of German education remains hidebound. “The rule is still the teacher standing in front of a class of 30 and the kids taking notes,” says Kaija Landsberg of Teach First, an education charity. Immigrant children suffer most.

德国的教育体制和观念仍然过于守旧。教育优先（Teach First）是一个教育慈善组织，该组织的凯伊加•兰兹伯格说：“德国教育的现状仍然是一名教师站在一个有30名学生的教室前讲课，学生们记笔记”。移民的儿童受害最深。