In the latest IQB education study, only Hamburg can maintain its level of education, all other federal states are worse off than before. The IFO Institute is therefore concerned and emphasizes the effects on long-term prosperity in Germany. It could drop noticeably.
The IFO Institute has warned of long-term losses in prosperity due to the high learning deficits among German elementary school students. There has never been such a decline in learning outcomes, as IFO education expert Ludger Woessmann explained with a view to the latest IQB study.
The learning loss of a third school year goes hand in hand with an average of around three percent lower earned income over the entire working life, said Woessmann. For the economy as a whole, this could lead to an average 1.5 percent lower gross domestic product over the rest of the century.
The decline in the new results of the educational trends of the Institute for Quality Development in Education (IQB) is only partly a result of the corona pandemic and partly also reflects a long-lasting downward trend.
“These huge learning deficits will not simply go away. They will have high consequential costs if we do not take countermeasures immediately. As a society, we must make sure that the learning results of children and young people improve,” said Woessmann. Attending school and acquiring skills would have a positive impact on the prosperity of students and society. This connection is better documented by economic research than almost anything else.
Only the federal state of Hamburg was able to maintain the level in a ten-year comparison. Woessmann suspects that this has to do with Hamburg’s regular performance tests and a strategy of data-driven improvements. “This should be a role model for the other federal states and for Germany as a whole,” said Woessmann.