Not only is the German economy sinking but the country’s students, who are supposed to be the country’s future workers, are getting worse every year in terms of educational outcomes. Despite the absolute failure of mass immigration so far, the authors behind the new study are calling for even more immigration.
The report also shows that Germany is pouring more money into education than ever before — and getting less for it. That is the uncomfortable message at the heart of a major new report unveiled in Berlin on Monday by Education Minister Karin Prien titled “Education in Germany 2026.”
The study was prepared by the Leibniz Institute for Educational Research and Educational Information for the federal and state governments. Its conclusion is blunt: across the board, German students know less and can do less than their predecessors — even as public and private education spending hit €305 billion in 2025, a staggering 59 percent more than in 2014.
The extra billions, in other words, have only bought a steady decline, as Remix News has already reported in the past.
Nowhere is that decline sharper than in math. The report found that a growing share of ninth-graders aiming for at least a secondary school leaving certificate can no longer meet the minimum standards expected of them. In 2012, 16 percent fell short. By 2024, that had climbed to 24 percent — nearly one in four pupils.
Nor is the slide confined to weaker students or struggling schools. The researchers found that average “computer and information-related skills are declining,” and stressed that the erosion of competence spans “all performance levels” — including the Gymnasium, Germany’s most academically selective school type, long considered the engine of the country’s educated elite.
More young people leaving with nothing
At the other end of the spectrum, more students are leaving school with no qualification at all. The share of pupils exiting without a leaving certificate has risen to 8 percent of their age group, up from 6.9 percent in the previous report and 6.2 percent before that. The trend line points in one direction, and it is the wrong one.
A shrinking ladder into the workforce
The report also lays bare a deepening crisis in Germany’s prized apprenticeship system — a model long admired abroad for funneling young people into skilled trades. Between 2023 and 2025, the number of company-based training places fell by 32,000, while the share of firms offering training at all dropped to just 18.7 percent in 2024, a record low.
This bodes very poorly for the German economy, which is already falling behind countries like China.
The squeeze is especially damaging because demand is rising at the same time supply is falling. As the report put it: “Approximately 95 apprenticeships were available for every 100 people in demand.” With fewer slots than candidates, applicants are left with almost no choice — and German industry is left struggling to secure the skilled workers it depends on.
There were a few bright spots. Traditional vocational schools saw enrollment climb, with 233,000 new students in 2025, many drawn to the healthcare sector. And despite fears that vocational training is losing prestige, a quarter of graduates who qualify for university still choose it instead — a share that has held steady for years, pushing back against the assumption that trade training is becoming an afterthought for academically capable young Germans.
Fewer qualifications, slower starts
Still, the overall picture on professional qualifications is grim.
“Premature contract terminations and failed final exams make it more difficult to secure skilled workers,” the authors wrote, noting that the number of people completing professional qualifications recently sank to a new low of around 492,000.
Even those who do reach university are taking longer to get out. The Bachelor’s/Master’s system was meant to speed students into the workforce by letting them leave after a first degree. Instead, the report found, students now need almost as long to earn the lower-value Bachelor’s as earlier generations took to complete a full Master’s or Diploma — an average of 8.4 semesters, more than four years, up from 7.2 in 2014.
For Prien, the findings point to a problem that begins long before a child ever sets foot in a classroom — and one the school system is failing to fix. “The education gap widens from birth, continues to open until school enrollment, and then does not narrow again over the course of the school years,” the minister said.
More immigration is the answer?
The report links education directly to Germany’s demographic crisis, spurred by declining birth rates since 2022 and aging baby boomers retiring. It explicitly states that integrating immigrants into the education system and the labor market is now one of Germany’s most essential avenues for securing skilled workers.
What it does not mention is that countries that have chosen “zero immigration” or close to zero immigration have already fared much better in terms of educational outcomes, including Japan, South Korea, and China, which all vastly outrank Germany in terms of math achievements.
The report also highlights how Germany should import more international students, which it describes as a vital workforce pipeline. It notes that international higher education graduates are increasingly staying in Germany long-term, particularly in heavily strained STEM fields.
Again, many Asian countries have avoided this trend and have far better educational outcomes.
Countries like the United States with the highest rate of immigration have seen their educational systems significantly deteriorate.
According to the New York Times, data from the Nation’s Report Card and the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard confirms that U.S. student achievement in reading and math has been in a steady, decade-long decline.
Reading scores have decreased in 83 percent of U.S. school districts over the past decade. Math scores have also dropped in roughly 70 percent of school districts. Nationwide, teenagers are performing nearly half a school year behind where their peers were a decade ago.
Meanwhile, anti-immigration Asian countries continue to lead the world in math and other STEM subjects, which is translating into a vast economic advantage over pro-immigration countries in Europe, which now has to resort to protectionist measures to avoid being beaten out by countries like China.
The authors of the study should also pay attention to the teachers, principals, and teachers associations throughout the country that are calling multiculturalism a complete failure. This has been exhaustively documented by Remix News (here, here, here, here, and here).
In fact, the chaos is so complete in the German school system that authorities have forced 41,000 first graders to repeat the first grade, with many of them unable to even speak German.
