Today we arrive at the Robert Junke Oberschule, an integrated Secondary School (ISS) named after the Austrian writer of nuclear weapons. This school, which is an integrated version of the Hauptschule, Gesamtschule, and Realschule offers vocational classes such as woodwork, metalwork, textiles and home economics as well as basic education such as German, English and Physics.
The interest for us in today’s visit was not only about the school but the fact that our visit fell on a strike day. In Berlin there are two types of teachers, the public servant teachers and the contracted teacher. Historically there had been a deal made with teachers that they could be seen as public servants, have job security, good pensions and better pay if they agreed not to strike. More recently teachers who have been employed do not have these luxuries or securities and were therefore striking to get more even benefits. Interestingly those who striked were reimbursed for their day’s wages by the union which they pay €30 a month. It was also interesting to see a strike so close to an election but as in Australian, schools are controlled by the Länder (Similar to our State Government) and this is who they were striking against.
Unfortunately, due to the strike we didn’t get to see any classrooms and work with the students, but it was interesting to hear about the work they did with bilingual learning at the school. Students have an opportunity to take all of their classes in Polish or German and can choose to take their exams in either language. The school of 950 is well known in Berlin for its Polish program with some students travelling an hour to school each day.
In Berlin there is free choice of schools so it is important for schools to offer something above and beyond.. For the Robert Junke Oberschule their intake each year is made up of 60% of those students with the best marks, 10% of students who have special considerations for attending a particular school (which sounds a little like vouchers but they rarely take any students in this scenario) and 20% are chosen from a hat. There are minimum grades required to come to the school with 1 being the highest score and 6 the lowest. Robert Junke sit at 2.6 putting it in the higher range.
We heard from Thomas, the principal about class sizes. He made mention of Hattie’s research, which was not the first time it had been mentioned in Berlin or Copenhagen. Although Thomas took a different view and was disgusted with Hattie’s research suggesting class sizes don’t matter. He is determined to have smaller class size. For some in our group they were surprised to hear of Hattie’s popularity in Germany but Thomas explains he is so well known in Germany because everyone can take something from his data, policy writers can say the money doesn’t make a difference but teachers can use it to say they are important in education.
Once again there is very little technology seen in the schools. The teachers do not know how to use the technology so they don’t bother with spending the money. Thomas believes in putting money into student well being instead and shows us the rooms they have created for students to rest and relax.
Our afternoon visit today was to the Technology University Berlin where Dr Stefan Wolf spoke to us about the vocational stream in Germany. The Dual system of Germany is world renowned for its comprehensive education of basic skills as well as in company training. Students study German, English, Maths, Political Science and then subjects from their learning field. With the very low youth unemployment rate in Germany it has been seen as a huge success although Stefan was skeptical of the system due to the difficulty in getting companies to take on apprentice students where only 20% of companies offer an apprenticeship. “It is a policy not in real practice.”
Stefan wan not an expectation that apprentices stay on with their company when they finish their apprenticeship. It fact it is rare for this happen and most apprentices find a full time job for another company.