Germany’s PISA Disaster Reveals a Four-Year Migration Gap

Germany has recorded its worst PISA scores, but pupils without an immigrant background would still rank among the world’s best in science. Those from immigrant families are about four school years behind – a gap not seen in England.

In Germany, low performers outnumber high performers in PISA.

In Germany, low performers now outnumber high performers in all three PISA domains. Photo: Maskot/Getty Images/AI

In the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the OECD’s worldwide assessment of 15-year-olds, German pupils recorded their worst results yet. They scored 486 points in science, 465 in reading and 464 in mathematics. A total of 6,659 pupils at around 250 schools took part.

The scores measure performance on an international scale whose OECD average was originally set at 500. To put differences in performance into context, the OECD uses a rough benchmark of about 20 points for one year of learning. Pupils without an immigrant background scored 521 points in science, compared with an average of about 438 among pupils with an immigrant background. On that basis, the 83-point gap corresponds to roughly four school years.

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A Four-Year Learning Gap

According to Germany’s PISA report, pupils are classed as having an immigrant background if they were born abroad themselves or if both of their parents were born abroad. They make up 29% of pupils.

Fifteen percent are second-generation immigrants, meaning they were born in Germany to two foreign-born parents. Another 9% arrived in Germany before their 11th birthday, while 5% arrived later.

More concerning is that even second-generation pupils scored just 463 points, 57 points behind pupils without an immigrant background. Among pupils who came to Germany before their 11th birthday, the score fell to 423 points. Those who arrived later scored an average of just 392 points, putting them 129 points, or more than six school years, behind their peers without an immigrant background.

The differences are not confined to the averages but extend to both ends of the performance scale. Among pupils without an immigrant background, 15% failed to reach the minimum proficiency level, while 14% were among the highest performers.

In the second generation, 31% were low performers and only 5% were high performers. Among pupils who arrived after their 11th birthday, 65% failed to reach the minimum level, while fewer than 2% reached the highest proficiency levels.

With 521 points, pupils without an immigrant background would rank about eighth internationally. They would sit just behind Estonia with 527 points and South Korea with 526, but ahead of England, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Finland. Germany’s overall score of 486, by contrast, is 35 points, or almost two school years, below that group’s result.

Germany is now among the countries in which low-performing pupils substantially outnumber high performers in all three tested domains. In science, the ratio is 27% to 9%, in reading 32% to 7% and in mathematics 34% to 8%. Austria is in a similar position, according to its PISA report.

In East Asia, the pattern is reversed because both weaker pupils and the most able are systematically supported. In the four Chinese regions assessed, around 36% of pupils were top performers in science, while only about 3% failed to reach the minimum proficiency level.

Singapore, Taiwan and Japan likewise have far more top performers and much smaller groups of low performers. The five highest scores in the entire OECD comparison came from East Asian education systems.

England Has Nearly the Same Share of Immigrant Pupils

A look at England shows that Germany cannot explain its overall result by the size of its immigrant population alone. Among the pupils tested there, 27% had an immigrant background. England nevertheless scored 516 points in science, 497 in reading and 492 in mathematics, placing it among the top 10 participants in all three domains.

Since 2010, the English government has fundamentally overhauled its schools, placing greater emphasis on prescribed content. A knowledge-based curriculum replaced the earlier focus on general skills. Systematic phonics instruction was introduced for reading, and England adopted mathematics teaching methods from Singapore and Shanghai. Schools also receive additional funding for children from low-income families through the Pupil Premium.

These policies also set England apart from the other parts of the United Kingdom. Although Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have similar social and economic conditions, England performed better in all three tested domains.

The difference is particularly striking among second-generation immigrant pupils in England: they scored 530 points in science, even higher than English pupils without an immigrant background. The corresponding figure in Germany was 463 points, a gap of 67 points, or more than three school years.