51° 2/2010: School
Due to a growing number of students of migrant origin, educational policy reforms such as the introduction of an eight-year secondary school in place of the previous nine-year system, and the trend towards all-day schools, German schools today face a whole host of new challenges. At the same time, schools are the most important element of and the key to a successful education for children and young people of all educational levels. At Mercator, we believe in the strength of the school as an institution, and promote and foster this strength in different ways. Our strategic goal is to improve access to education for children and young people regardless of their origin, and thereby to promote equal opportunities for all. Schools are therefore the focus of this edition of 51°.
We regard schools as an integrative system that should offer all students, irrespective of their origin and abilities, the best possible prospects for the future. We have therefore set ourselves concrete targets in our two thematic clusters of integration and arts education: to eliminate the imbalance as regards school and university qualifications that exists between people of German background and those of migrant origin, and to work towards establishing a new culture of teaching and learning that anchors art and culture more firmly within our educational system.
In this edition, education researcher Winfried Bos talks about the all-day schools initiative “Ganz In – All Day-Schools for a Brighter Future”. Three projects are presented to show how school and lesson development can be enhanced by creating school networks. There is a report on the battle against boredom in the classroom at the third Mercator Education Debate, and you will be taken on a tour of the Mercator Circus School. In a guest article, Winfried Kneip, director of the Centre for Education at Stiftung Mercator, explains the Foundation’s educational strategy.