Kommentar: Pisa 2026 – die unbequeme Lektion aus Chinas Klassenzimmern
Shanghai und Peking hängen deutsche Schüler in Mathe locker ab. Der Grund liegt nicht im System – sondern in einer Frage, die deutsche Eltern kaum noch stellen.
The Pisa shock has once again reached Germany, and once again, the gaze turns to Asia. The Chinese metropolises of Beijing and Shanghai, as well as the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, achieve top scores in mathematics and sciences. Prejudiced criticism immediately flares up: the selection is not representative, and the methodology is questionable.
Another frequently raised objection is that Germany should rather compare itself with countries that have a similar political system, such as Taiwan, South Korea, or Japan. This is undoubtedly true. After all, the results of the four Chinese regions cannot be generalized to the whole of China. And an authoritarian state is only to a limited extent comparable to a liberal democracy.
This should not make it too easy for us to dismiss the Chinese experiences hastily. In this case, it is not about system rivalries, Xi Jinping, or the nationalist propaganda taught in Chinese schools, but about a private, almost familial issue: How much time, money, and care do we actually invest in the education of our children?
Written by urgent.news from Handelsblatt's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
