Chapter 12: Middle School Education in Germany

Germany is a federal republic comprised of 16 states that have a high degree of autonomy when it comes to educational decisions. According to the Freedom House Index (2008), which measures the level of political rights and civil liberties in 193 countries and 15 related and disputed territories, the German democracy is ranked among the highest developed political systems in the world. With 82 million inhabitants, the country has the largest population of all member states of the European Union. Ten million inhabitants (i.e., about 12% of the population) are immigrants, mainly from Turkey and the former Soviet Union (Statistische Ämter des Bundes und der Länder, 2008). Germany is located in Central Europe and surrounded by Poland and the Czech Republic in the east, by Austria and Switzerland in the south, by France, Belgium and the Netherlands in the west, and by the Atlantic Ocean, Denmark and the Baltic Sea in the north.