Gesamtschule

Gesamtschule 

In some states, usually governed by the SPD (Social Democratic Party), there was an attempt to reform the system by creating a more inclusive kind of secondary school, more like the American high school. Beginning in the late 1960s, theGesamtschule (comprehensive school) was introduced as an alternative to the traditional three-tiered secondary education system. Instead of three different schools, there are three different tracks within one school. Beginning in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, the first Gesamtschulen appeared in West Berlin and a few other Länder, but soon there was resistance from the conservative CDU (Christian Democratic Party), teacher unions and parent groups, who felt that the comprehensive school was inferior to the traditional sytem.

Although the original idea was to replace the old three-school system (Gymnasium,Realschule, Hauptschule) with a single secondary school, the Gesamtschule orEinheitsschule, in practice it has not worked out that way. Rather than replacing the three-school system, the Gesamtschule has merely been added to the traditional system. Some Gesamtschulen are also Ganztagsschulen (all-day schools), with a class schedule that runs longer than traditional schools, which usually only have classes until noon or 1:00 p.m.

The decade between 1972 and 1982 was supposed to be a trial period to see if theGesamtschule was superior or not. The verdict was mixed, and the Gesamtschulenow only exists in various forms in about ten of the 16 German states. In some German states, including Bavaria, Hamburg, Saxony, Thuringia and others, the Hauptschule and Realschule have been combined to create the Mittelschule (also known as Regelschule or Regionalschule) to create a two-tiered system rather than three. Even in former East Germany, where the “unified school” educated everyone to be good, socialist citizens, the Gesamtschule has not been adopted uniformly. The good old academic Gymnasium has endured in most of Germany to this day. In Austria and Switzerland the Gesamtschule concept has never drawn any real support.