How can educational opportunities in North Rhine-Westphalia be improved? Consequences of the coronavirus
The results of a recent study by FiBS on behalf of the North Rhine-Westphalia office of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation can be summarised as follows: Even though there have been some positive developments in the North Rhine-Westphalian education system, such as more daycare places, slightly better school performance, and fewer early school leavers, the challenges still outweigh the positives:
Children with a migrant background are significantly underrepresented in the daycare system: among children under three, the attendance rate is 17% (vs. 37% among children without a migrant background); among older children, it is 73% (vs. 100%).
Around one-fifth of 15-year-olds can only read, write and do basic maths. An unnecessary number of them will still graduate from school.
The number of apprenticeships in the dual vocational training system has decreased in recent years, independently of the coronavirus pandemic. Since a larger proportion of the increased number of high school graduates are taking up dual training at the same time, this has led to a significant deterioration in the training opportunities for young people who have at most an intermediate school leaving certificate. Meanwhile, fewer than half of a school-leaver cohort with the corresponding school leaving certificate find a training place, in some cases only a third.
In contrast to this, the rates of entry into the transitional system have increased, even if the number of young people in this sub-area of vocational schools is smaller than in three years. In a nutshell, this last observation leads to the conclusion that the transition from school to training, both dual and school-based, is increasingly becoming an ever-narrowing bottleneck for the future prospects of young people. This applies even more to North Rhine-Westphalia than to Germany as a whole!