TS - The World

Last night was the TV Debate between the "chancellor candidates" Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Angela Merkel. Why the quotation marks? Let's be honest: Merkel will become chancellor again since Steini doesn't really have a chance of becoming it with approval ratings around 20-25% for his party. But this is not what this blog will be about.

After the debate I switched to ARD to Anne Will (wow, I do actually watch not only private tv stations). It was a really good hour I had watching the program since this time not the two sleeping pills of chancellor candidates were arguing but rather journalists and two politicians (Klaus Wowereit and Edmund Stoiber). Anne Will's team also put together a fictional debate between Stoiber and Wowereit. In the clip show they had a part of one of Stoiber's talks in which he mentioned mandatory language tests for children before they enter school.

Surprisingly, all of the big five parties, except Die Linke, supports the idea. I just wonder why it hasn't been realized in most of the states (I think NRW, Hesse and Bavaria are the only ones with such a system). I agree that it is very difficult to determine the performance of children in various situations since some children just don't like to talk in other places apart from home. However, since I dealt with a study about the success of Hauptschüler (children of our lowest education level) it becomes apparent what kind of issue these children have: lack of language competency. Many of them are immigrants and 20% of them don't speak German at home. Those are the ones with the biggest problems. It is also proven that your language competency (especially grammar and spelling) is a major factor in your future (no matter what branch of your career). If your language is good your chances in life become much higher.

Now wouldn't these language tests be helpful, especially for immigrant children who have barely been in Germany for a year or so and are required to understand lessons in German completely if they don't want to fail in school? Don't get me wrong: I don't want these people out of the country. Yet, I think aid programs would be really good for them: send them to language school for a year and then get them into school. In my opinion this would significantly decrease risks of them failing at schools and later having to choose the lowest education level and not have any chances in life. I think it's not about getting rid of these children or cast them out from our education. It is about giving them a real chance in life, a postponed one, but a much better chance than what they might face if it wasn't for such a test.

I don't know if the concept is meant for all children (also non-immigrant children). I am against formal tests where these children would be in a room with a person and has to talk to them. This would just put them under pressure and might result in more failings. However, I am for some sort of evaluation by educators and that they should document critical cases. Seemingly, this is the case in most states already and it is also the main criticism against such a formal test. I just wonder: why then do we still have so many children who are stuck on the lowest education level because somebody (whether it be the parents or educators) missed to teach them a good language early on in life...