Germany's falling birth rate is being felt in schools and kindergartens, with the number of daycare children below the age of 3 falling nationwide for the first time, according to a government report on education released on Monday.
The number of primary school children is also expected to start declining from the 2027/28 school year, also due to a decline in immigration, the report, released biannually by the Education Ministry, said.
But the decline in the number of pupils and kindergartners does not necessarily mean an easing of pressure on the German education system, which is struggling with a shortage of staff, crumbling infrastructure and tight funding.
"There are still gaps in childcare provision, particularly for children under the age of 3," the report dubbed Education in Germany 2026 said.
In schools, falling pupil numbers are also "not automatically associated with a reduction in workload," the report, which was presented in Berlin, states.
With Germany in the process of implementing all-day care for all primary school pupils, "the demand for resources is increasing," it said.
Many German primary schools only recently began offering all-day care for all pupils, with many parents, often women, previously forced to switch to part-time work to care for their children in the afternoon.
"The demand from parents for all-day care remains consistently high and is still not being met," the report found.
The report, first released 20 years ago, aims to take stock of the German education system, from kindergartens to universities, to guide the national government and the country's 16 federal states, which are responsible for education policy.
This year's report also found that skills in reading, mathematics and science are declining overall, while educational success depends on a child's socio-economic background - two key findings also confirmed by other studies.
"Too many young people are failing to meet basic competence targets," said co-author Kai Maaz of the Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education.
He said this trend highlights "long-term structural problems" and "a key weakness in the education system."
German Education Minister Karin Prien also criticized that educational success still largely depends on socio-economic factors, including poverty and migration.
"What we are now seeing is that the educational gap essentially begins at birth, widens by the age of six, and then does not narrow any further," she said on a morning programme of public broadcaster ARD ahead of the release of the report.
Prien stressed that early childhood education needs to be prioritized.
Kindergartens need to better support children up to the age of 6, she said, including by ensuring that they become proficient in German.
