Briefing
Wiesbaden, 4 November 2026 – The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reports that, in 2025/2026 school year there were 8,998,200 pupils at around 32,800 general education schools in Germany. This represents just under four-fifths of all pupils. A further 2,258,000 attended one of around 8,300 vocational schools. The figures are based on preliminary rapid returns from the official school statistics.
In the same school year, 811,200 children started school — around 2 per cent fewer than the previous year. According to Destatis, 91 per cent started school on time, 7 per cent late and just under 3 per cent early. Of those taught at general education schools, 84 per cent were German citizens and 16 per cent held only foreign citizenship. State schools recorded a higher proportion of pupils with foreign citizenship than private schools.
Destatis reports that 769,000 pupils left general education schools in the 2025 leaving year. Of these, 228,700 obtained the general qualification for university entrance, 339,800 a middle school-leaving certificate and 134,800 a first school-leaving certificate. A total of 64,900 left school without a first school-leaving certificate. The proportion of non-German pupils in this group was 35 per cent. These distributions point to marked differences by citizenship; the brief report does not explore causes or regional patterns in detail.
Destatis reports around 760,300 teachers at general education schools, 73 per cent of them women. Some 56 per cent of teachers worked full-time. Around 125,000 teachers worked at vocational schools, again with a majority being women. Details of regional distribution, qualifications or age profiles are left to the full tables.
The results come from preliminary rapid returns and may change following subsequent revisions. According to the Federal Statistical Office, they are linked to the tables in the GENESIS database and can be analysed by school type, year group and other characteristics. This provides official, nationally comparable headline figures on pupil numbers, school starts and qualifications in the 2025/26 school year.
Editor: Daniel Mayer (Article created with AI assistance).