ABSTRACT Europe is moving closer to political unity and the introduction of the Single European Act will certainly help promote the professional mobility of teachers. However, modes of teacher education vary enormously from one European country to another and this diversity is likely to militate against mobility, making it difficult for nationals of one country to be fully effective outside their own environment. The present article sets out to analyse the German model of teacher education which, although influential, is complex and, due to the federal structure of the country, not easy to research. It indicates briefly the historical reasons for inequalities of status between teachers of various German school types and describes in general terms the most prevalent current arrangements for producing teachers. These are contrasted with attempts to introduce innovative models likely to lead to greater equality within the teaching profession. The paper then concentrates on efforts made in North Rhine Westphalia and Hesse to reform the traditional structures. The `One-Phase Teacher Education' programme mounted in Lower Saxony in the 1970s and 1980s is singled out for special attention since it represents the most far-reaching and radical attempt to date to overhaul German teacher education; its eventual failure reveals that the impediments to reform are deep-rooted within German society.
A tension between the great ideological polarities of elitism and egalitarianism permeates educational issues in most countries, and that of teacher education in Germany is no exception. Historically the peasantry and working classes attended public elementary schools and the upper classes sent their children first to private preparatory schools and then to grammar schools. Elementary school teachers went to teacher training seminare and never met the children of the upper classes; grammar school teachers were subject specialists with little interest in pedagogy. Gradually, however, a movement developed to do away with traditional distinctions and status inequalities within the teaching body: in other words, an attempt was made to democratise it.
School types in west Germany have long been characterised by a strongly-marked prestige hierarchy in which primary teachers (Grundschullehrer) come bottom, and the secondary sector is subject to a tripartite division into Hauptschule (general secondary school), Realschule (intermediate school) and Gymnasium (grammar school). Comprehensive education has never established itself widely in Germany. In the year 1989, only 5.7% of seventh to ninth year pupils were in comprehensive schools (BMBW, 1990, p. 36). This global figure conceals a considerable variation from one Land (federal state) to another. In conservative Bavaria a mere 0.4% of the seventh to ninth year cohorts were in comprehensives, whereas in Hamburg, Berlin and Hesse the percentages were 18.9, 27.3 and 15.6 respectively (ibid.).
Scholz (1990) draws attention to the fact that the German school system has developed from the top down, and that the elementary school, which is the basis of all subsequent education, is of more recent origin than the most `academic' parts of the system: the Gymnasien and the universities. He adds: `The present tripartite basic structure of the school system underwent its essential development in the last century and therefore emanates from the pre-democratic period of German history' (Scholz, 1990, p. 21). So far as teacher education is concerned, the burden of history continues to make itself felt; I have argued elsewhere that a kind of `phylogenetic inertia' renders it difficult if not impossible for social institutions to change so as to become fundamentally different from what they were at their inception; such inertia goes a long way towards accounting for the close connection between teachers' historical roots and their present professional profiles (Pritchard, 1986, p. 295).
The Hamburger Abkommen of 1964 laid down a binding school-type nomenclature for the whole Federal Republic, taking account of schools' specific traditions and historical background. The Grundschule has its legal basis in the Constitution of the Weimar Republic (Hopf, 1990, p. 168), but its antecedents are much older. Both Grundschule and Hauptschule (literally translated `main school') are the descendants of the old elementary school (Volksschule), the evolution of which has been extensively documented by Karl Bungardt (1965) in his book Die Odyssee der Lehrerschaft. For centuries, teachers have been pulled between the conflicting powers of church and state. Luther in 1530 in his ` Sermon, class man solle die Kinder zur Schule halter' called upon the community to make school compulsory and use it to prepare the young for secular occupations as distinct from holy orders. This later led to confrontation between secular and religious lords, because the latter insisted on religious observance in non-religious schools. During the Counter-Reformation, partly as a result of the Treaty of Westphalia, the school again became an `ecclesiasticum', but in 1774 Maria Theresa insisted that the school was a `politicum', and arrogated to herself the right to organise it in accordance with the needs of the state. A similar position was also taken up by Frederick the Great in the Prussian Allgemeines Landrecht, and the assertion of political power over the school gave rise to the danger of education being misused for the state's purposes. Throughout their history, elementary teachers have tended to be pawns of church or of state.
In sixteenth-century Saxony, all sextons were proclaimed teachers, and in Prussia (1722) a decree was issued to the effect that only tailors, wheelwrights, blacksmiths and carpenters were allowed to practice as sextons and schoolmasters (ibid., p. 20). The earliest origins of elementary school teaching were thus associated with manual labour. Poverty was the teachers' constant companion, and the low wages brought the work into such disrepute that it attracted many people of low intellectual and moral calibre. Teachers often indulged in drunkenness, theft and disorderly behaviour or, at the other social extreme, became intolerably pretentious (ibid., p. 22). By the late 18th century, however, moves were afoot to improve teachers' behaviour and social standing. In 1797, the Hesse Reading Circle of Village Schoolmasters pledged that their members would not frequent public houses, and would avoid bibulous functions like weddings and wakes; in 1812, Harnisch, the first organiser of the Breslau Teacher Training Seminar, began to exclude from it all those who harmed its dignity. The great educationalist, Pestalozzi, reinforced the democratic tradition in education and gained international fame; princes visited his institution, and his reflected glory made a major contribution to improving elementary school teachers' image and self confidence. Teachers' aspiration towards freedom climaxed in 1848, the year of revolutions, when Friedrich Wilhelm Wander proclaimed the essential unity and common interest of all teachers. He was supported in his championship of the 'underdogs' by teachers from universities and grammar schools who, in a fervour of liberality and progressivism, had become more conscious of what all teachers had in common than of what divided them.
The solidarity which would have led to the emancipation of elementary teachers was short-lived, and the spirit of 1848 was superseded by, repression, justified by the assertion that teachers had helped to foment rebellion. In 1851, their tax exemption was abolished and they were forbidden to belong to political associations. In 1854, Privy Counsellor Stiehl in Prussia issued his Regulative which were intended to prevent elementary schools becoming free of church power. They imposed damaging educational restrictions on teacher training by limiting it to mere 'tricks of the trade' and pious religious literature. This cut teachers off from important mainstream intellectual developments, and damaged their already low prestige still further. However, Germany's increasing industrialisation and the growing influence of liberalism gave rise to criticism of Volkschule-teachers' inadequate educational level and in 1872 the Stiehlsche Regulative were removed (Tack, 1982). The effect of having been deprived of high-quality academic preparation for teaching was further to highlight the importance of attaining it, and gradually the education of primary teachers was upgraded. Equality with teachers in other school types has, however, proved elusive, even in the 20th century.
By far the most prestigious school type in Germany is the Gymnasium, whose teachers were the first to have their academic education regulated and structured by the state in the 19th century. Their professional origins are linked with Wilhelm von Humboldt, the founder of the University of Berlin, who in 1810 introduced a state examination, Examen pro facultate docendi, for those wishing to teach in Prussian academic secondary schools. Its effect was to establish that they required a full academic course at university, and thereby to enable them to enjoy the respect which society accorded to academics and scholars. It also helped set up grammar school teaching as an important career in its own right, not merely a second-best for those who wanted, to become clergymen but had failed to secure a living (Ringer, 1969). The qualifying examination for entry to university, which came to be called the Abitur, could only be taken at institutions offering Latin and Greek and these were given the name Gymnasium. The elevation of the Gymnasium teachers over those in other school types thus has a long history which has given them advantages retained right up to the present. Today, all prospective teachers for an school types must complete the Abitur examination.
As their curriculum became increasingly formalised, barriers rose between the privileged Gymnasien and the secondary schools which offered only Latin. These came to be called Realschulen [
As its name implies, the Hauptschule was originally intended to be the school type accepting the majority of the age range. In 1960 this was indeed the case: 63.9% of seventh to ninth year pupils were in Hauptschulen, and so it was clearly justified in calling itself a 'main school'. Over the last three decades, however, it has lost out to the Realschulen and the Gymasien. By 1975, the Hauptschule's share of pupils in classes 7-9 had sunk to 45.8%, and by 1989, it was a mere 34.8% (BMBW, 1990, p. 36). By contrast, between 1960 and 1989 the Realschule increased its intake of classes 7-9 cohorts by 100% and the Gymnasium by 50% (ibid.). This means, of course, that the other school types have gained ground at the expense of the Hauptschule.
By the end of the 19th century, two regional variants of the teachers' examination had emerged: Prussia and its associated states introduced an exclusively academic examination with general and subject-specific elements; Bavaria and Wurttemberg on the other hand had a two-phase procedure in which the candidates first studied their academic subjects at university and then did a two-year period of school-based practice which enabled them to acquire expertise in pedagogy. Shortly before the end of the First World War (on 28 July 1917), Prussia too adopted this academic/pedagogical division, which has dominated German teacher training ever since (Dobrich et al., 1980, p. 20), and today forms the basic model for teacher education in most Bundeslander. As the detailed organisation of the two phases of German teacher education varies quite considerably from one Land to another, the present paper aims to produce tenable generalisations, supported by illustrative examples, and describe significant exceptions to common practice.
In general, for phase 1 of their education, students attend university or teacher training college [
The final examination requires students to produce a dissertation (Hausarbeit), and sit oral and written examinations. It is important to note that the theory and philosophy of education is studied at university or college, before students undertake their professional training proper. Outside Germany, there is a common misconception that German teacher training is entirely school-based and practical, and this assertion is sometimes used to support the arguments of those who wish to detach teacher education from its deeper cognitive foundation and make it a pragmatic 'bag of tricks'. In Germany, the intention is to ensure that teachers have adequate conceptual equipment as well as practical competencies. The Germans' recent unhappy history has taught them the hazards of excluding from the curriculum those subjects like philosophy and sociology which foster the capacity to engage in reasoned social criticism. In the short term, it may be more convenient and less troublesome for the government to discourage such criticism but the long term dangers are obvious ('obvious' at least in Germany; less obvious, perhaps, to the 'radical Right' in countries such as the United Kingdom).
Once the first, academic stage of teacher education is completed, young people leave their higher education institutions, and proceed to phase 2, the professional stage of their teacher training. Usually there is a waiting period before they are able to embark on this phase, but whether or not there is a moratorium depends on candidates' marks and subject combinations. With the exception of the 'one-phase' experimental model to be described below, phase 2 is normally carried out in a Seminar (teacher training centre). In most Lander, the Seminare are detached from the universities and independent of their jurisdiction. In Baden-Wurttemberg (BM) however, the Seminare have historically been regional rather than local institutions, and have had such close relations with their local universities or colleges of education that, at one time, there was even a move to give them the status of higher education institutions (HEIs). That development did not, in fact, take place, but the BW Seminare work more closely with HEIs than those in most other Lander; they engage in research, sometimes commissioned by the Ministry of Education, and the heads of their subject departments have special supplementary qualifications in educational theory or psychology which enable them to lecture in HEIs (Weinmann, n.d., p. 28).
The heads of the Seminare are variously known as Direktoren, Rektoren or Leiter; in some Lander, such as Bavaria, they are school-based, and besides carrying the task of managing the Seminare, they do between six and eight hours teaching a week (Mraz, 1985, p. 8); in other Lander, such as North Rhine Westphalia, they are freed from their teaching responsibilities (Brochhagen, 1986). The leader of the Seminar, who has a deputy, is responsible for its whole organisation, and for the education and evaluation of the trainees. Usually, the Seminare have their own budgets and are responsible to the chairperson of the local regional council (Regierungsprasident) or the Ministry of Education. The training process, which involves school-based teaching practice supplemented by Seminar-based theory input, is supervised jointly by the Seminar and school staff, and culminates in the Second State Examination, success in which confers the right to teach in state schools.
Young persons starting out on phase 2 of their teacher training are made civil servants for the duration of the training period, but this Beamtentum is revoked at the end of the training period (formerly 18 months, now in most Lander 24 months) and must be re-negotiated when the qualified teacher obtains permanent employment. The students are likely to be placed in more than one school so as to afford them breadth and diversity of experience, but schools where candidates have done teaching practice are under no obligation to give them jobs once they are qualified. Indeed the job market is sometimes so tight that a candidate may be unable to obtain employment anywhere, despite having obtained full marks in practical teaching. Falling pupil rolls have led to cutbacks in the numbers of teacher trainees accepted, and from 1984 to 1985 this caused the closing of some 32 Seminare in North Rhine Westphalia, with consequent over-stretching of those which remain (ibid.). Bavaria has also been hard hit by teacher joblessness.
A small Seminar takes about 20 students, a medium one 40 to 50, and a large one 80 to 120. The work of the Seminar is divided into subject departments which vary in size, with between four and 17 trainees for secondary level, and up to or exceeding 20 for primary. Subject Seminare have their specialist heads (Fachleiter) whose jobs are school-based (except in BOO), and whose activities are split between teacher training and their own classroom teaching. They therefore have two bosses: the head of the Seminar and their school principal. They have to apply competitively for the Fachleiter job, and undergo a selection procedure for it. During teaching practice, the trainee is regarded as a member of the staff of his or her school (to which s/he is assigned by the Seminarleiter), but the functions at the Seminar are supposed to take precedence over the demands of the school. The Lander vary in the amount of responsibility which they allow the trainee to assume, some, for example, not permitting them to act as form teachers.
The work of a Seminar has three main components: the mediation of theory through general (Haupt) and subject (Fach) seminars, the conduct of teaching practice in schools, and the evaluation and assessment of trainees' performance. The general seminars deal with principles of teaching, educational psychology, school law and theory, and are conducted by the head or deputy head of the Seminar. Subject seminars normally consist of work on the curriculum and methodology appropriate to particular subjects; this may be supplemented by educational visits and excursions. The teaching practice is divided up into a number of different stages, and includes observation, supervised teaching and independent teaching. The number of hours per week varies from Land to Land: in Berlin, secondary teachers do 10 hours a week, and other teachers 12 hours (Bliemel, 1985, p. 5); in Schleswig-Holstein, trainees for primary and Hauptschulen do 14 hours a week of independent teaching from the start (Meerstein, 1986, p. 6), whereas in the Realschulen independent teaching is increased gradually, beginning with 2-5 hours, and building up to 6-9 hours out of a total of about 13 hours (Werchau, 1986, p. 8). Trainees are also expected to participate in the corporate life of the school, taking part in school outings, parents' nights and so on. The ordinary class or subject teachers (Aushildungslehrer) have a duty to help the trainees, and in some but not all Lander they are given a reduction of teaching load for doing so. There also exist mentors who have a major responsibility for the work of the trainees, and receive a more substantial remission of teaching for their trouble. The school principal liaises with the Seminar and acts as overall school-based co-ordinator for the training process.
During the course of training practice, the trainee will be visited by the Seminar staff, for the purpose of advising or evaluating. In some Lander, there is a form of continuous assessment in which marks given in the course of teaching practice contribute towards a final assessment, but in others, everything depends on the final tests. The State Examination Office for Second State Examinations (Stuatliches Prufungsamt fur Zweite Staatsprufungen) is responsible for conducting the final examination. The examination board usually consists of the head of a general seminar, a subject leader for each subject taught and a chairperson (a school head of subject or a seminar leader or a member of the State Examination Office). There are usually three parts to the final tests: demonstration of practical competence in teaching, oral examinations and the preparation of a Hausarbeit which takes between two and five months to do and varies in length from about 40 to 50 typewritten pages, depending on Land regulations. Sometimes the test of practical teaching and the oral tests all take place on the same day, a trial not just of candidates' competence but of their stamina.
In most Lander, young people train for a licence to teach in a particular school-type, be it primary, Hauptschule, Realschule, Gymnasium, vocational school or special school. The regulations thus perpetuate the tripartite structure of secondary education. Traditional inequalities between teachers are semantically encoded, with the result that in Lander like Schleswig-Holstein and Berlin, trainee grammar-school teachers are called Referendare, and when qualified are known as Studienrate whereas trainees for other school types are usually called Lehramtsanwarter, and when qualified are known simply as Lehrer (teachers). Sometimes the training centres for future Studienrate are called Studienseminare, whereas those for other trainees are called Ausbildungsseminare (this word connotes 'training' rather than the more prestigious 'education').
As might be expected in view of their different historical antecedents, grammar-school teachers are paid on higher civil service salary scales than other teachers: they belong to the hoherer as opposed to gehobener Dienst. Many people regard these differences as justified by the greater academic demands made on grammar school teachers, and the fact that their minimum-permitted study periods at university are normally at least two semesters longer than those for teachers in other school types (say eight instead of six semesters). In view of grammar school teachers' greater rewards and superior status, it is hardly surprising that they wish to defend their position against encroachment from 'lower down'. Most would not welcome uniform training periods or pay scales throughout the profession, and in this they are supported by their trade union, the Deutscher Philologenverband. The grammar school teachers and their union tend to attach more importance to subject expertise than to teaching methods. A corollary of this tension is disagreement over the relationship between educational theory and pedagogical practice, particularly during the HEI-based phase 1 of teacher education.
A number of attempts have been made to overcome traditional divisions within the teaching body. The student revolt of 1967-1968 gave a powerful stimulus to educational reform in Germany and acted as a catalyst of change. The Deutscher Bildungsrat (German Education Council) (1970) put forward progressive ideas calculated to overcome divisions between teachers. A particularly influential body, for a time, was the Bundesassistentenkonferenz (an association of junior university staff) which published a series of documents outlining proposals for the reform of various aspects of German education. The Bundesassistentenkonferenz sought to introduce greater flexibility and democracy into the education system and favoured the concept of the 'comprehensive university'. Although only six comprehensive HEIs were created in West Germany, they have been a seminal force for change (Pritchard, 1990). Five of them are located in North Rhine Westphalia, and one in Hesse.
Both these Lander eventually adopted a strategy, known as the Stufenlehrermodell, whereby teachers are trained not for specific school types but for broadly-banded age groups or levels (Stufen): primary, lower and upper secondary levels. In Hesse, a group of staff newly appointed to the comprehensive university of Kassel began in 1971 to work on a framework for training Stufenlehrer. Although inspired by ideals of social justice, the innovators were careful to level upwards rather than downwards, and they called for academic courses which would last eight semesters--the same length of time for all teacher trainees (Heipcke & Messner, 1981). This would have constituted an extension to the normal length of academic course undertaken by non-grammar school teachers. The social consensus supporting the new proposals was, however, short-lived, and was destroyed by the oil crisis of 1973-1974 which created a new and inclement financial climate. In April 1974, the Lander authorities decided that equal education for all teachers was too expensive, and decreed that if the Stufenlehrer concept were to be retained, the teaching body would have to be divided into primary and lower secondary candidates who would study for six semesters, and upper secondary candidates who would study for eight semesters. This decision caused disappointment and rage among the would-be reformers, but there was no gainsaying it. The modified Stufenlehrer structure, still consciously intended to work against the vertical division of the school system, was duly introduced into Hesse and some other Lander. It has been in operation in North Rhine Westphalia since the winter semester of 1975-1976. The necessary law changing teacher education from a school-type to a pupil-level-related structure had been passed one year earlier in 1974.
The victory of the Stufenlehrermodell is, however, a somewhat Pyrrhic one. Stufenlehrer can find it difficult to obtain recognition of their qualifications outside the Lander where they have originally qualified, and Lander which train teachers for specific school types can make difficulties when Stufenlehrer apply for jobs. A further problem, although not an overwhelming one, is that whereas the Stufenlehrer-concept is geared to a system of comprehensive secondary education, in all Lander without exception the majority of pupils are taught in schools where the usual tripartite division pertains. Despite its long Social Democratic tradition, even North Rhine Westphalia had only 8.1% of seventh to ninth year pupils in comprehensives in 1989 (BMBW, 1990, p. 36), and so there is in fact a mismatch between teacher training pattern and school structure.
The issue of the practical training of teachers was politically a controversial issue which divided the parties. Broadly speaking, the Social Democrats (SPD) in West Germany campaigned for a more vocational, pedagogically-oriented model of pre-service teacher education. The Christian Democrats (CDU), however, favoured the traditional subject-centred model associated with idealist philosophy and the elitist classical German university tradition.
In the 1960s schools and universities were overcrowded as a result of the post-war baby boom, growing population and increased access to higher education. There had been some attempt to provide school placements for students in phase 1 of their teacher education courses, but their increasing numbers over-loaded the schools; the commitment to school experience usually added to the length of the course and since at the time Germany was also suffering from teacher shortages it seemed to make sense to get students onto the job market as quickly as possible. The custom of giving school experience died out. This made students' study of education less valuable and interesting than it would otherwise have been, because they were denied the opportunity to try out ideas in practice and watch what qualified teachers did; it also resulted in the trauma of Praxisschock when trainees suddenly had to deal with real pupils for the first time during phase 2; and it caused great chagrin to those who found that they had, after all, no real vocation for teaching and would have benefited from the opportunity to discover this at an earlier stage.
The dichotomy between theory and practice was widened by the fact that most of the education staff in most university education faculties are predominantly theoreticians rather than practitioners. This state of affairs comes about as the result of the very high qualifications which are demanded if one is to obtain employment as a tenured professor in a university. Normally, such a person would be expected to have a fair number of academic publications, and to have successfully completed doctoral and post-doctoral theses (Promotion; Habilitation), both of which take so much time and effort that there is little opportunity to hold down a job as a practising teacher at the chalkface. (It would be difficult and unusual for a candidate to teach in a school and do the theses part-time.) The average age at which one finishes the Habilitation is 38.5 (Knopp, 1984), and it is not until one has done so that one can seriously begin looking for a permanent, tenured, academic post. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to work one's way from a school to a university job (admittedly not totally impossible, but it can usually only be managed by great sacrifice of time, energy and money). None but a minority of professors have experienced in person what it is to transform educational theory into classroom practice, and it is difficult for them to promote in their students a synthesis which has eluded them existentially.
The comprehensive universities were instrumental in re-introducing practical school work to phase 1. At Kassel, Hesse, there was already a general commitment to work-study placements, and this principle having been accepted, it was logical to adapt it to school-placement for intending teachers. Kassel applied the placement concept for all Stufen, and claims to be the first institution in the Federal Republic to have insisted on future Gymnasium teachers undertaking practical school experience; it can also claim to have pioneered the introduction of school placements throughout the whole of Hesse (Heipcke & Messner, 1981). The comprehensive university at Wuppertal in North Rhine Westphalia likewise arranged school placements (Schulpraktische Studien), and developed structures to bring about harmonious liaison with schools. The success of the Wuppertaler Modell which was trialled from 1975 to 1978 resulted in its application Land-wide and its formalisation within the NRW examination regulations of 22 July 1981 (Boversen, 1989, p. 6). School placements either on a day-release or a block basis have now become commonplace throughout the Federal Republic. A residual problem, however, is that the HEI staff are under no formal obligation to go into schools and supervise the students. This duty devolves on the school staff. University teachers tend to regard time spent at the chalkface as time stolen from the research which alone will further their careers; those in Padagogische Hochschulen are more enthusiastic about undertaking school visits, while the staff in the comprehensive universities occupy an intermediate position between the other two types of HEI.
The debate about theoretical studies versus Praxis is of course central to teacher education. The progressivists champion socially-useful applied studies whereas the conservatives champion high-status `pure' studies, and their anti-utilitarianism manifests itself in resistance to wholesale attempts to unify the teaching profession round a vocational ethos. It is for this reason that Praxis is in fact related to the democratisation of education.
The most radical of all attempts to democratise German teacher education and overcome the dichotomy between phases 1 and 2 took place in Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen), and was called simply `One-phase teacher education' (Einphasige Lehrerausbildung (ELAB)). It was pioneered at the Universities of Osnabruck and Oldenburg, both of them reforming institutions which opened in 1974. Detailed information given in the present paper relates to Oldenburg at which the experiment ran for longer. The main objectives of ELAB were:
ELAB completely removed the division between the academic and the professional phases of teacher education and developed a concurrent model terminating in one single examination which, when passed, gave qualified teacher status. (It is of interest to note that a similar experiment was applied to the reform of legal education and training.) The ELAB course, which was under development from 1971 onwards, was originally intended by its progenitors to take five years, and to last the same length of time for trainees for all school types. This was vital to the attempt to help unify and democratise the profession. In 1974, however, the University of Oldenburg was forced to retreat from its original aim as a result of a decree issued on 16 May 1974 by the Kultusminister of Lower Saxony, in which it was laid down that for primary and lower secondary teachers the course was to last nine semesters, and for upper secondary 11 semesters. The model adopted by Lower Saxony's new universities was thus age-related rather than school type-related and was therefore a variant of the Stufenlehrermodell.
The curriculum consisted of four elements: two subject specialisms, educational/ social sciences and practical teaching studies, this last to constitute 25% of the whole, and to culminate in a six-month period of teaching practice. Study was to be interdisciplinary, practice--and problem-oriented. It was influenced by the concept of Forschendes Lernen (`Learning through Research') which had been developed in the 1960s by the Bundesassistentenkonferenz. Project work, which spanned the school and its environment, was an important feature of each student's portfolio. The entire course was divided up into three major stages:
Stage I: one to three semesters' basic course for all intending primary, lower and upper secondary school teachers;
Stage II: four to seven semesters for primary and lower secondary school teachers; or four to nine for upper secondary level;
Stage III: eight or nine semesters for primary and lower secondary school teachers; or eight to 11 for upper secondary level (plus extra time for examination preparation).
Each stage had its distinctive dominant concerns. Thus, the first was receptive rather than productive of actual teaching skills, and was characterised by enquiry into the worlds of study, school and society; the second was marked by increasing sophistication in the theoretical field together with an ability to teach in controlled circumstances; the third was intended to be fully productive, marked by the ability and willingness to perform independently as a teacher, to develop, apply and evaluate curriculum material, to contribute to decision-making, and to organise `politically conscious teaching' (Dobrich et al., 1980, p. 50; Spindler, 1982). The most innovative parts of the ELAB model were commonly agreed to be the project and the teaching practice.
The Iynchpin of ELAB was the university-school relationship. This was based on a commitment of the university staff to undertake the duty of school supervision, and on the willingness of schools to provide specially-selected school-based contact teacher tutors (Kontaktlehrer) who guided the training process from day to day (Dobrich et al., 1980, p. 57). They were supposed to help the students with their projects and teaching practice, and assist in the conduct of students' examinations. Their normal teaching load was reduced by 10 hours a week for the limited period during which they participated in the experiment (three years with option to prolong); they were not put on to a higher pay scale and their work as Kontaktlehrer did not constitute a post of special responsibility. Although a few of them did take on the job merely in order to enjoy a remission of normal teaching hours, most were intrinsically rather than extrinsically motivated, and undertook the work out of sheer interest. A very useful forum for assuring good communication was the school-university conversation circle (Gesprachskreis Schule-Universitat (GSU)) which was created to assist the integration of teaching practice into the university course, to discuss problems and to discover solutions (ibid., p. 77).
ELAB addressed itself seriously and successfully to the problem of uniting theory and practice. The relationships between the university and the Kontaktlehrer were very rewarding, and the GSU constituted an important instrument for the resolution of difficulties. The Kontaktlehrer benefited from their interaction with the university, and the intellectual stimulation of being involved in ELAB turned many of them into animateurs for curriculum reform within their schools. The ELAB experiment thus gave a creative impulse to the school system far beyond the circle of people specifically participating in it, and constituted a subtle means of inservice education for those in post. The fact that schoolteachers took it in turns to act as Kontaktlehrer ensured buoyant motivation and continuing flexibility--to a much greater extent than would have been the case if the Kontaktlehrer-role had been associated with posts of special responsibility, or if ELAB had been confined to specially set-up `model schools'. For the professors and other staff at the university too, ELAB was fruitful: it led many of them to conduct valuable applied research and synthesise theory and practice in a manner unusual in German higher education (ibid., p. 172). Furck (1981) praises the GSU's work very highly, and goes so far as to claim that its importance almost exceeded that of the internal university committees.
Despite its successes, and despite the favourable reports from external experts (Dobrich et al., 1980, p. 57), the parliament of Lower Saxony decided in 1979 to terminate the ELAB experiment and to begin training Gymnasium teachers according to the two-phase model from the beginning of the following year. Those students already being trained within the ELAB structure were permitted, however, to finish their courses according to the model under which they had begun. By 1986, the year in which the last of the ELAB-educated students qualified at Oldenburg, about 4,000 teachers had been ELAB-trained. The reasons officially given on 11 April 1979 for doing away with ELAB (Furck, 1981, p. 146-147) were of a rather legalistic nature: the civil service framework law only guaranteed the equivalence between ELAB and the two-phase model until 15 September 1981, and there could be no guarantee of such recognition being perpetuated. Since no other Land was intending to introduce ELAB as its normal model, the continuation of ELAB would stand in the way of a national unified teacher education structure; the ELAB structure permitted students to finish their training more quickly than those training according to the two-phase model, and this lack of parity was alleged to be unfair. (There was, of course, no hiatus between phase one and phase two, because the two had been merged.) The last-mentioned reason must have aroused a somewhat bitter reaction among the supporters of ELAB: one of its original objectives had after all been to shorten training times, and yet, in the end, success in attaining this very objective was turned against the ELAB team.
Reasons for ELAB's discontinuation. ELAB could be considered a sort of pilot study (Modellversuch) [
Despite the success of the GSU, the University of Oldenburg as a whole was not adept at creating a good public image, and this left the way open to misunderstanding of its innovations. Dobrich et al. (1980, p. 81) point out that within the university there was a faction which they call the `global reformers' who wished to use change in teacher education as a lever to effect change in society as a whole. Unfortunately, their far-reaching reform ambitions led them to reject the merely `good' in favour of what they regarded as the `best', and because they wanted so much, paradoxically they actually did comparatively little. So it came about that they made insufficient effort to build up harmonious relations between town and gown (that would only have been to `compromise'), and although they very much wanted ELAB to be a success, they went so far as to condemn it as a failure, because they were measuring it against their Utopian aspirations. Since Oldenburg was a modern experimental university, its students were tagged with the label `Red', an appellation which some of them indeed seemed to justify by their unconventional dress and behaviour.
Although ELAB was intended to be educationally progressive, it had some curricular weaknesses. Whereas trainees under the two-phase model used to complain of the shock of being plunged into classroom work, the ELAB-educated ones found themselves being pushed too soon into the teacher's role, and sometimes had difficulties in accommodating to it. The six-month period of teaching practice in the third phase was widely agreed to be too short, especially compared to the two-phase model. Indeed towards the end of their course the students had a rushed and crowded schedule. They found themselves having to complete their Hausarbeit, prepare for their final teaching practice tests and examinations, all in a very short period of time (ibid., p. 150) The teaching practice tests themselves further eroded the time available for actual teaching, and this very time constraint tended to make trainees play safe in their methodological approaches (Ewert, 1981). It was difficult for ELAB students to reach the same standard as those educated under the two-phase model, given that the ELAB model was based on a much shorter period of teaching practice. Work done in stage one of the course (e.g. analysis of pupils' social backgrounds and other consciousness-raising activities) was found to have a disappointingly low rate of transferability to stage three work (Dobrich et al., 1980, p. 99). The projects took up a great deal of time, and the topics chosen were sometimes not sufficiently closely related to the reality of school life (Ewert, 1981, p. 38). Within the university itself, there was no serious opposition to ELAB, but as usual in universities, staff's commitment to the supervision of practical classroom work conflicted with their research activities. Moreover, ELAB supervision proved to be even more time-consuming than had been anticipated, and there were seldom enough members of staff to do the job as well as it ought to have been done.
These curricular difficulties, however, could perhaps have been overcome were it not for the fact that there was serious opposition to ELAB from several influential interest groups.
Although ELAB's sphere of influence had been designed so as not to encroach upon that of the well-established, traditional Seminare, there could be little doubt but that the latter looked upon ELAB with a somewhat jaundiced eye. University lecturers and professors, some of whom had more experience in abstract-theoretical research than in practical classroom work, were perceived as muscling in on the work of the Seminare as if they `knew it all'. This led to tension between the Seminare and the university. A common criticism emanating from the Seminare was that the trainees were deficient in subject knowledge and could not properly pretend to teach subjects which they were still in the process of learning themselves. In this way, the demand for a high level of subject knowledge was used to discredit the concurrent model and urge a return to the status quo.
The most serious difficulties arose not in the training of primary and lower secondary school teachers but in that of the future Gymnasium teachers, whose powerful union, the Philologenverband, was irreconcilably opposed to ELAB. For non-Gymnasium teachers, the ELAB model represented an improvement in status: the prestige of the Kontaktlehrer role, and involvement in a fully academic course of study conducted by a university all combined to help overcome their historically-determined social inferiority (Furck, 1981, p. 188). For the inheritors of the venerable Gymnasium tradition, however, ELAB signified a potential demotion. They were afraid of a professional levelling down and of the introduction of a Stufenlehrer model which would have threatened the continuance of the Gymnasium as a distinctive school type. There was even talk of `salary reversals' (ibid., p. 165). The leftist aspiration to use the reform of teacher training as a means of effecting change in society as a whole met with widespread rejection among members of the Philologenverband.
In this emotional climate, it is not surprising that Gymnasien showed a marked reluctance to co-operate in the ELAB programme. An insufficient number of Gymnasium teachers were willing to serve as Kontaktlehrer, and it was difficult for the ELAB programme organisers to obtain enough Gymnasium school placements for the students. The problem reached such proportions that on 14 April 1978 it was the subject of a question in the Landtag (ibid., p. 164). Over a period of years, a massive campaign of adverse publicity was waged against ELAB. It was claimed that the students were ill-prepared for their work in the schools, that their subject knowledge was inadequate, that ELAB was unpopular with parents; legal action was taken in which the right of the pupils to good teaching was pitched against the right of the students to training (the verdict went in favour of the former) (ibid., p. 192). The alleged neo-Marxist underpinnings of ELAB were vehemently rejected; the spectre was raised of the `danger of ideological manipulation of whole generations', and a reduction was demanded in the social sciences course component of ELAB in favour of increased subject input. It was even claimed that the marks given for pupil assignments by ELAB students on teaching practice were invalid, because ELAB's legal basis was shaky (ibid., p. 193). It was repeatedly stated that ELAB had `failed' and that it was causing `chaos' in the schools.
Whatever substance there may have been in all these allegations, it was true that the degree of official legal support for ELAB left much to be desired. It has already been pointed out that before ELAB began functioning, a government decree forced its pioneers to retreat from one of their most ambitious social goals: the attempt to run courses of the same length and status for all teachers. Although the programme began in 1974, it took until 12 November 1975 for a provisional set of examination regulations to be issued (ibid., p. 204). What was still needed was a full Studienordnung which would have included an officially-recognised syllabus, and by autumn 1979, this had not yet been issued. On 31 May 1978 a law was promulgated to regulate the status of ELAB training relationships, but this was only of a provisional nature. Although it empowered the appropriate ministries to pass legislation regulating ELAB course structure and examination procedures, it was not until June 1979 that a draft of such legislation was published, and by the time it became law on 23 July 1980, the decision to discontinue ELAB had already been made. Furck (1981, p. 207) points out that the decrees applied to ELAB were sometimes inconsistent and contradictory, so that for example subject combinations which were possible at one time were subsequently forbidden.
On a more positive note, it is true that the lack of a clear legal basis had the advantage of giving the innovators ample scope for free development of ELAB, but in the end even this freedom became burdensome. The normal expectation in Germany is that important public matters should be firmly anchored in a legal matrix, and the fact that this was denied ELAB until it was too late only served to discredit the course in the public eye. It was a deficit which was especially keenly felt in the thorny relations between university and the Gymnasium.
ELAB was the victim of controversy between the major political parties, and the university's weakness in the arena of public relations left it ill-equipped to use its educational successes in transcending party-political divisions. Like the comprehensive universities in the Federal Republic, the ELAB experiment owed its origins in large measure to the student revolt, and like them it suffered from the fact that the reform wave was short-lived, the end being hastened by the oil crisis of 1973-1974. At first, officialdom had smiled on plans to renew teacher education. The Deutscher Bildungsrat (1970, pp. 221-246) advocated an integration of theory and practice in teacher education, and the Federal Government in its Bericht zur Bildungspolitik (Bundesregierung, 1970) upheld the model of the Stufenlehrer and implied the desirability of teaching practice for all teacher trainees in phase 1, while the Bund-Lander Kommission in its Zwischenbericht spoke out for the Stufenlehrer principle and stated that `Pilot studies with one-phase teacher education' were possible; by this stage, however, the CDU/CSU Lander were no longer willing to support the Stufenlehrer model, and Baden-Wurttemberg, Bayern, Rheinland-Pfalz, the Saarland and Schleswig-Holstein all passed a special vote in favour of differentiated school--and teacher-education systems (Bund-Lander-Kommission, 1971). By 1975, the will to reform had evaporated, and the Westdeutsche Rektorenkonferenz stressed that the two-phase model was the regular tried-and-tested structure, and ELAB merely a possible alternative.
Despite the re-assertion of traditional modes of teacher education, the governmental and university authorities in the Federal Republic have shown by their periodic attempts to innovate that they are deeply conscious of the weaknesses endemic within the system. It is, therefore, all the more surprising that the two-phase model is now to be introduced into the new Bundeslander (Jobst, 1991, pp. 116-118). The former GDR had a structure which could have been adapted to a modernised integrated model, yet now its existing system is to be split, and Seminare are to be set up with all the educational disadvantages and all the expense that such a move implies (cf. Handle & Nitsch, 1991). One wonders why. Perhaps the reason is that the obstacles to change are now so familiar to the authorities that they despair of ever overcoming them. It is certainly ironic that paragraph 11 of the decree laying down the two-phase model Jobst, 1991, p. 118) states:
The universities and institutions of higher education may apply to the appropriate Ministries for pilot studies to be undertaken relating to one-phase Teacher Education and new courses.
Correspondence: Rosalind M. O. Pritchard, The University of Ulster, Coleraine, BT52 ISA Northern Ireland, UK.
The research for this paper was financed by a grant from the German Academic Exchange Service. I wish to thank Professors Hilbert Meyer, Friedrich Busch and Detlev Spindler of the University of Oldenburg, and Herr George Henning, formerly of the Staatliches Prufungsmt fur Zweite Staatsprufungen, Dusseldorf, all of whom furnished me with information and interesting experiences, and made me feel welcome not only as a visiting scholar but as a person. My colleague, Dr Bill Hart, read a draft of the article and commented helpfully on it.
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By ROSALIND M. O. PRITCHARD
