The (Allgemeine) Schulpflicht (English: (General) Compulsory Schooling) is a statutory regulation in Germany that obliges children and adolescents up to a certain age (which is 18 in all federal states) to attend a school. The Schulpflicht includes not only regular and punctual school attendance, but also participation in lessons and other school events, as well as doing homework.
Simple laws, the so-called Schulgesetze (School Laws), regulate the implementation. The police are often used in this process. Children whose parents refuse to have them vaccinated must also go to school.
The German courts have generally interpreted the law as dictating that all school-aged kids in Germany must attend school until their 18th birthday, and that any unreasonable absence from lessons under the age of 18 is a crime. It is considered one of the very few compulsory school attendance laws in a developed, non-dictatorial country, since most democracies have compulsory education laws instead, meaning that education may also take place independent from school, as recorded in the article Homeschooling international status and statistics. Its justification, supposed benefits and motivations are disputed and controversially discussed.
History
In 1919, the Weimar Constitution stipulated the Schulpflicht for all of Germany, from 1938 to 1945 the Schulpflicht im Deutschen Reich (Compulsory Schooling in the German Empire), abbreviated as the Reichsschulpflichtgesetz (Empire Compulsory Schooling Act), was in effect. This law classified people with complex disabilities as unfit for education. For the disabled, compulsory schooling was not introduced until 1978, regardless of the type and intensity of the disability.
Initially, the Schulpflicht applied only to children with German citizenship. It was extended to foreign-born children in the 1960s. For asylum seeker children in North Rhine-Westphalia for example, it was introduced in 2005. Previously, there had been at most a right to attend school.
Positions
Advocacy
The Schulpflicht serves to enforce the state's educational mandate. This mandate is also officially aimed at educating the students as future citizens. The Federal Constitutional Court ruled that schools are better suited than other ways of education for this purpose, as they claim that „Kontakte mit der Gesellschaft und den in ihr vertretenen unterschiedlichen Auffassungen nicht nur gelegentlich stattfinden, sondern Teil einer mit dem regelmäßigen Schulbesuch verbundenen Alltagserfahrung sind“ ("contacts with society and the different views represented in it do not only take place occasionally, but are part of an everyday experience associated with regular school attendance").BVerfG, 2 BvR 1693/04 vom 31. Mai 2006, Abs. 16 aa.
The Federal Agency for Civic Education (bpb) argues for the Schulpflicht that „Die Allgemeinheit hat ein berechtigtes Interesse daran, der Entstehung von religiös oder weltanschaulich motivierten, Parallelgesellschaften' entgegenzuwirken und Minderheiten zu integrieren [...]“ ("The general public has a legitimate interest in counteracting the emergence of religiously or ideologically motivated 'parallel societies' and in integrating minorities...") and claims that „Unsere Gesellschaften sind [...] nur möglich, weil es Schulen gibt, die allen Kindern die notwendigen Voraussetzungen für die Kommunikation vermitteln, das heißt sowohl Kulturtechniken als auch die Orientierung an kulturellen Normen und Werten“ ("Our societies are... only possible because there are schools that provide all children with the necessary prerequisites for communication, that is, both cultural techniques and an orientation towards cultural norms and values"). In addition, they claim that homeschooling is „[...] von radikalen bibelgläubigen christlichen Eltern gefordert [...]“ ("...demanded by radical bible-believing Christian parents..."). The bpb also thinks that the Schulpflicht does not just mean that all children have to go to school, but also that all children have the right to attend school, although this would not require compulsory schooling, which is why some people see this as a misappropriation of the word. They claim that it is one of the children's rights to attend school, although the children's rights education does not state that this has to be mandatory.
The then CSU chairman Erwin Huber justified the Schulpflicht in September 2008 with the following explanation:http://www.kandidatenwatch.de/erwin_huber-120-16282--f143173.html#frage143173
Criticism
The Schulpflicht has frequently faced criticism from various groups overtime.
Some argue that it violates article 26 (3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: "Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children." and the freedom of assembly. Some people also see the Schulpflicht as a form of deprivation of liberty. There are also people who find that the Schulpflicht violates article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.95 Thesen gegen Schule (PDF data; written by René Böttcher with Bertrand Stern among other people)
The UN special rapporteur on the right to education, , expressed concern in his report published in Berlin on February 21, 2006, that the restrictive German compulsory education system criminalizes the use of the right to education through alternative forms of learning such as homeschooling. University President criticizes that Germany, unlike seven other European countries and the US, adheres to a rigid school attendance requirement instead of leaving it to the parents to decide how and through whom children are educated.
In particular, the way the authorities deal with school-aged mentally or physically handicapped people and efforts cater to their needs are often criticized in Germany, since said group is also generally obliged to attend school in Germany.
Immigrants from Germany, who wanted to teach their children themselves, argued at an immigration court in the USA that the common practice in Germany of refusing parents permission to study at home as a substitute for schooling was political persecution. While in 2010 the immigration court accepted the arguments of the school refusers, the Board of Immigration Appeals rejected the family's application in May 2013 on the grounds that US immigration laws did not guarantee an automatic right to stay for anyone who experienced restrictions outside the United States that would not exist under the American constitution.
German philosopher and author Bertrand Stern sees it as a fundamental human right to be able to educate oneself freely (independent from an institution), which is violated by compulsory schooling and criticizes the German system of mandatory schooling in his books and publications, which he describes as „inhuman“ ("inhuman"), „verfassungswidrig“ ("unconstitutional") and „obsolet“ ("obsolete") and having „[...] überhaupt keinen Platz mehr in unserer Wirklichkeit“ "...no longer any place in our reality".Interaktiver Kongress (interactive congress" "EMPOWER THE CHILD" with Regina Sari: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JoW7I_IL7p8 He thinks that the Schulpflicht will be abolished very soon.
German neurobiologist and author Gerald Hüther criticizes the Schulpflicht as degrading children as self-determined subjects to incapacitated objects of schooling. In his opinion, school should be a place which children are motivated to attend voluntarily and enthusiastically. He thinks that it is „[...] das Furchtbarste, das einem überhaupt passieren kann [...]“ ("...the most terrible thing that can ever happen to you..." if you ask young people why they go to school and their only answer is „Weil ich muss“ ("Because I have to") and that children want to learn naturally when they are born. He is also of the opinion that schools in Germany are deliberately designed to push pupils towards being passive consumers and detached from the political system when they grow up, „[...] damit wir genügend Kunden für den Müll haben, den wir hier ihnen andrehen wollen [...]“ ("...so that we have enough customers for the rubbish that we want to sell them here...").
German philosopher Richard David Precht considers it questionable to dictate to children how to spend a large part of their most formative and most important developmental phase and questions whether there is a need in the name of education to „[...] Kindern 10.000 Stunden [an] Lebenszeit abzuzwacken“ ("...stifle children 10,000 hours [of] life").In a conversation with the German journalist Reinhard Kahl on the subject of education, Richard David Precht gave his opinion about school. An excerpt from the conversation can be seen here on YouTube. He is of the opinion that in times of easy access to information via the Internet, it is harder to justify the necessity for schools.ZDF: Volle Kanne, airing from May 23, 2013 with Richard David Precht. A reupload can be seen here on YouTube. He believes that schools have lost their role as the primary provider of knowledge to the next generation and their learning objectives should therefore shift the focus to promoting a child's development in areas such as personality, teamwork and creativity. He assumes that in the future more and more parents will ask themselves why they should send their children to school.
Some educational researchers see the Schulpflicht as counterproductive and sometimes leading to lower performance on the part of students and less interest in some topics. The sociologist Ulrich Oevermann, for example, is in favor of abolishing the Schulpflicht viewing it as unhelpful for creating better educated young people. He criticizes the „Trichterpädagogik“ ("funnel pedagogy") and conceives a Socratic maeutic pedagogy of understanding.
German lawyer with focus on school and administration law and member of the Vorstand des Bundesverbandes für Bildungsfreiheit Andreas Vogt sees it as a human right to be able to educate his children at home instead of in school. He says: „So rigide und repressiv wie Deutschland agiert in Europa kein anderer Staat.“ ("No other state in Europe is as rigid and repressive as Germany.")
It is sometimes argued that the Schulpflicht assumes that children are unwilling or unable to educate themselves or to be educated outside a school and parents lack the ability to raise their children independently.
On December 8, 2014, German radio station Deutschlandfunk Kultur did an interview with a German father who unschools his children and argued that the purpose of the Schulpflicht is to „[...] lernen, sich unterzuordnen [...]“ ("...learn to submit ..."). He thinks that the Schulpflicht „[...] Lernen behindert und Mündigkeit erstick [...]“ ("...hinders learning and stifles maturity...") and that communication and discussion are strictly regulated in school, which is why he does not see school as a suitable place where socialization can take place.
On November 8, 2018, police wanted to force a 15-year-old school refuser to attend school in Halle-Neustadt and came to her home, whereupon she fled to the balcony and jumped down. Resuscitation measures were carried out and the victim was taken to hospital. At around 8:55 a.m., the police were informed by the rescue control center that the girl had died despite intensive treatment.
Some believe the Schulpflicht is maintained because they think school costs like tutoring and school trips are an important economic factor in Germany.