In the discussions on the federal structure of Germany, educational policies stand in the foreground. On the one hand, the competence of the Länder in educational matters is called into question, on the other, it is lamented that schools and universities enjoy too little autonomy in the individual Länder. In light of this tension between central control and the autonomy of decentralised education providers, the project will examine the effect that federal competition has on pupil performance. Special attention is placed on the question of whether heightened federal competition reduces the educational opportunities of pupils from low-income families, as often assumed.
These questions will be examined in an empirical part of the study by means of an educational system that has both competition among the education providers as well as central-governmental financing and regulation. For this reason the project will take the Netherlands as an example, whose pupils’ educational performance in an international comparisons is not only good but whose educational system also shows aspects of vertical and horizontal interaction that are of interest for reforms in Germany. A second, theoretical project part concentrates on the question of whether examination standards should be uniform throughout Germany or should be determined by the Länder. The findings are intended to inform the discussion of the reform of German educational federalism. The study will give recommendations about which combination of decentralised, competitive and central, controlling elements is best suited in educational policy to increase pupil performance especially that of disadvantaged pupils.
IMF, German Statistical Annual, Eurostat, OECD, World Bank, CIA.
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