(de-news.net) – Calls for a national education summit and improved federal-state coordination have been rekindled by relatively low PISA results in Germany. The results show growing socioeconomic gaps in educational attainment, which has led to suggestions for better oversight, more funding for early education, and more assistance for underprivileged kids.
Calls for a national education summit have intensified in response to Germany’s dismal performance in the latest PISA evaluation, putting renewed attention on the country’s persistent education challenges and the question of how they should be addressed across Germany’s federal system. Hose, a CDU education policy expert, argued that coordinated action by the federal and state governments was long overdue because educational problems now affected every state. Particularly troubling, he said, was the study’s finding that the relationship between children’s social backgrounds and their educational attainment had continued to widen. In his assessment, the growing disparity threatened individual opportunities while also contributing to broader social problems. The call for a national summit was also backed by AfD education spokesperson Reichardt and SPD deputy parliamentary leader Schmidt, indicating support for such a meeting across several political camps.
Following the release of the findings, the Federal Government planned to strengthen educational monitoring, according to Federal Education Minister Karin Prien (CDU). She argued that Germany’s existing monitoring system did not yet provide sufficient detail to interpret national PISA results at the state level. As a result, it remained difficult to determine what Germany’s overall findings meant for individual states such as Bavaria or North Rhine-Westphalia. Although some states had already made progress on necessary reforms, development remained uneven across the country. A stronger monitoring framework should therefore provide a more precise picture of data-driven instructional development across all grades and allow differences in progress between the states to be identified more clearly.
Prien also acknowledged that the Federal Government, States and Municipalities were facing severe financial pressure, particularly as the Bundestag entered its budgetary deliberations. Nevertheless, she maintained that education spending in her ministry’s budget was increasing despite those constraints. Among the measures she cited were continued support for the Digital Pact and additional funding through the Startchancen and day-care quality initiatives, including 1.5 billion euros scheduled for the following year. Prien also pointed to additional resources intended to support a joint federal-state roadmap, with the aim of translating broader education policy objectives into specific measures and implementing them in cooperation with the states.
Meanwhile, the SPD has called for a gradual transition toward fee-free child care while seeking greater contributions from affluent households to education financing. A party leadership resolution proposed reducing tax advantages associated with the transfer of extremely large fortunes and inheritances, arguing that early education should not depend on the financial resources of parents. The additional revenue, according to the proposal, would strengthen the states, which bear primary responsibility for education, and provide additional resources for improving educational opportunities for children and young people across Germany.
The SPD has also reiterated its support for language assessments before children begin primary school. Under its proposal, children’s linguistic and motor development would be assessed at age four, with mandatory support provided during the year before school where necessary. The party has linked the measure to the objective of ensuring that children begin school with the basic skills required to participate successfully in education. Bärbel Bas, the SPD’s co-leader and labor minister, emphasized that education begins during early childhood and argued that high-quality, increasingly fee-free child care should therefore be treated as an integral part of education policy. Federal, state and local governments, she said, should assume lasting responsibility for expanding places and improving quality. Manuela Schwesig, governor of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, similarly argued that greater investment and fee-free child care were needed both to reduce financial pressure on families and to broaden equal access to early education.
Experts call for earlier support as socioeconomic gaps widen
The PISA 2025 results provided the immediate backdrop to those demands, showing that the performance of German 15-year-olds in science, reading and mathematics had fallen to historic lows. According to the OECD, Germany now performs roughly at the average level of participating OECD countries, while about one-fifth of students lack adequate basic competencies across all three areas. The findings also highlighted a widening relationship between educational performance and family socioeconomic status. In science, that relationship was stronger than at any previous point in the PISA series. Only about 2 percent of students from socioeconomically disadvantaged families reached high levels of competence, compared with roughly 25 percent of students from more privileged households.
Researchers recommended that support needs be identified at an earlier stage, with young children receiving targeted assistance where necessary. Schools, meanwhile, should be strengthened according to the level and nature of support their students require. Samuel Greiff, an education researcher at the Technical University of Munich and head of the German PISA study, described the findings as highly concerning but cautioned against viewing them as inevitable. Education systems, he noted, were capable of changing, and Germany’s response to the PISA shock 25 years ago had itself demonstrated that significant adjustments were possible.
In turn, Verena Bentele, president of the VdK social welfare association, argued that the Federal Government had failed to make sufficient progress toward greater educational equity. Children growing up in poverty frequently lacked adequate financial resources for school supplies, tutoring or laptops, while cramped housing and the psychological pressure associated with financial insecurity could create additional obstacles to learning. The latest PISA results show that roughly one-third of 15-year-olds in Germany fail to reach minimum proficiency in reading and mathematics, with socioeconomic status accounting for 19 percent of the differences in performance.
Bentele argued that investment in child care and schools remained essential but could not, by itself, overcome the deeper disparities affecting children from low-income families. She therefore called for more comprehensive support while criticizing plans to eliminate the monthly immediate supplement for children and adolescents affected by poverty. The VdK has promoted universal all-day schools offering free meals and free technological equipment for classroom use. Such measures, in its view, would form part of a broader shift toward greater educational and social equity by addressing both the resources available within schools and the socioeconomic conditions that shape children’s educational opportunities.
