As a result, more and more children would go to high schools. “According to the motto: My child has no chance without a high school diploma and a degree.” He thinks it’s bad that politicians “go along with this madness as a political convenience by making it easier to access high school.”

Kraus: “The high schools are the new secondary schools”

This is not without consequences. The reputation of high schools is obviously better than that of any other route. “The high schools are the new secondary schools,” says Kraus to the “Münchner Merkur”. Too many students are “actually not suitable for high school and would be better off at other types of schools.”

The fact that the average grades in the Abitur are getting better and better does not contradict his descriptions, says the former president of the German Teachers’ Association. The demands on the students have fallen sharply, said Kraus. “The good grades make them believe that they have more potential than they really have. This means that certificates are sometimes bad checks.”

Kraus sees the students as overwhelmed by the decision to go to a high school or another school after the 4th grade. They mostly wanted to go to where their best friends would go to school in the future.

Kraus does not see postponing the transition, as is often called for by the Greens and the Left, as a solution. “After the sixth grade, for example, it doesn’t get any easier with the assessment,” said the former high school director in the “Münchner Merkur”.

“Not having access to high school is not a catastrophe. On the contrary”

Instead, he would like to see a new look at the educational situation. “If a child doesn’t start high school in the 5th grade, that doesn’t mean that their entire educational biography is blocked,” explains Kraus, calling the German school system “incredibly permeable horizontally and vertically.”

The former president of the German Teachers’ Association calls for parents and children to be better informed. According to Kraus, representatives from secondary schools as well as speakers from vocational schools and chambers should be present at information evenings. “You have to show parents what great opportunities there are and that not being able to go to high school is not a catastrophe. On the contrary.”