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BERLIN (Reuters) - Germans, proud of philosophers and writers such as Nietzsche and Goethe, have long assumed their schools were among the best in the world.
But they have been shocked out of their complacency by an international comparison of students in 32 countries by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which put German schools in 25th position.
The land of the "Dichter und Denker" (poets and philosophers) was stunned to find its students were in the bottom third of the Program for International Student Assessment test -- far behind top-scoring Finland and lagging Italy, the United States and Spain which the Germans had assumed to have inferior schools.
"Are German students dumb?" asked the influential weekly magazine Der Spiegel in a cover story that cataloged many of the weaknesses in the country's schools.
The first-ever global survey of the key skills of teenagers involved students around the world and included 265,000 15-year-old German students. They were tested in the summer of 2000 in reading comprehension, mathematics and science and the results were released last month.
Stunned by the poor performance, politicians and education experts have called for far-reaching reforms of the country's schools.
But they have been shocked out of their complacency by an international comparison of students in 32 countries by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which put German schools in 25th position.
The land of the "Dichter und Denker" (poets and philosophers) was stunned to find its students were in the bottom third of the Program for International Student Assessment test -- far behind top-scoring Finland and lagging Italy, the United States and Spain which the Germans had assumed to have inferior schools.
"Are German students dumb?" asked the influential weekly magazine Der Spiegel in a cover story that cataloged many of the weaknesses in the country's schools.
The first-ever global survey of the key skills of teenagers involved students around the world and included 265,000 15-year-old German students. They were tested in the summer of 2000 in reading comprehension, mathematics and science and the results were released last month.
Stunned by the poor performance, politicians and education experts have called for far-reaching reforms of the country's schools.
