BERLIN/Germany: For the first time in six years the number of school children in Germany has increased.
On Wednesday the Federal Statistical Office announced that the current school year 2022-23 has around 11.1 million students enrolled in general and vocational schools as well as schools that train pupils for jobs in the health-care sector, according to preliminary figures.
This is 1.9% more than the previous year. Data show this as the first increase since the school year of 2016-17.
One main reason for this increase is likely to be the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine forcing many people to flee the country. Exact data are not available yet due to the people’s nationalities not being recorded in the preliminary results, the statistical office said.
According to the data, close to 14% of the students have a foreign passport, which made the number increase by around 18% compared to the previous year. These numbers only consider students with a foreign citizenship, not a German one.
A reason for this increase in student numbers is also a demographical change as there are more young people between the ages of 5 and 20.
The Federal office said, there were more students registered at general education schools, with an increase of 2.9% to 8.7 million. By contrast, the number at vocational schools fell by 1.8% to 2.3 million.
