Education in Gianatla (Pacifica)

Education in Gianatla
Ministry for Education
Minister	Dr. Thomas Rampnitz
General details
Primary languages	Alman
System type	Central
Literacy (2018)
Total	99%
Male	99%
Female	99%

Education in Gianatla is highly centralised. It is divided into three stages:

primary education, consisting of Kindergarten and Grundschule (primary school)
secondary education, consisting of Gymnasium (grammar school), Realschule (real school) and Mittelschule (middle school). Students normally only visit one of these school types.
tertiary education, consisting of the possibilities to go to university, college or serve an apprenticeship.

There is also a school type called Sonderschule (special school), in which students that have a disadvantage due to disabilities get provided their right on education. There are regular debates to abolish special schools and instead work for better inclusion of such students.

Education in Gianatla is provided for by the country tuition-free. Home-schooling is not allowed, the government reasoning, that the child's right to a complete education is above the right of the parents to withhold certain information to their offspring. Private schools on the other hand are allowed and charge tuition.

Teachers are working for the ministry of education after a training of 5 years. This training works similar to a Gianlucian apprenticeship, where the trainee alternates between a theoretical part of the training and a practical part. Overall the training consists of 3 years of theoretical studies at university and 2 1/2 years of practical studies in at least two different schools of their choice. After graduation from university and passing an oral exam at the ministry of education, they are "Masters of Education" (M.E.) and with that finished their training.

Professors and lecturers work for their university. Normally they just need to achieve a master's degree in their respective subject to be allowed to hold a lecture, however most universities ask for credentials, which prove the person has gained competences in teaching.

All schools have their own student parliament. In primary school and in the secondary schools until 10th grade this parliament consists of two students per class, that got elected in their respective class - one male and one female student -, the teachers that are head of a subject department, and two parents for each class. In secondary schools as of 11th grade and in the schools of tertiary education, it consist solely out of students that got elected by their classmates (different number in each school). They meet at least once per quarter and may propose changes to the school to the principal. They also have a right to veto certain decisions of the principal.

Exams in Gianatla are mostly essay based and not multiple-choice tests. There is no dress code students would have to follow or school uniform they have to wear. Corporal punishment was banned in 1912 in Atlantis and in 1954 in Gianatla. Sex education classes are mandatory and part of the curriculum in 5th and 8th grade.

Primary Education

Playgroups and optional Kindergarten

Gianatla offers education for one year old children already. Kids can meet up in a Krabbelgruppe (playgroup), where they meet other children for the first time, make music and train their motor skills through games with their parents. As of two years old, children may join a kindergarten, where they usually get supervised between 7:00 h and 13:00 h while playing games, making music, crafting, interacting with the friends they make and often going on little field trips in order to gain a first understanding of the world that is surrounding them.

While the Ministry of Education recommends parents to let their children visit a playgroup and kindergarten before they are five years old, it was not made mandatory. This results in playgroups and kindergartens charging parents a yearly fee of on average around 180 Tacks ($200). However subsidies for low-income families are existing, but they strongly vary between each federal state.

Mandatory year in Kindergarten

When five years old a child has to go to kindergarten. As a preparation for primary school, children learn to count to 20, write their name (and sometimes address) and maybe even read their first little children's books. This happens in a friendly, playful environment with specially trained nursery school teachers. This mandatory year of kindergarten exists mainly to make sure the educational level of all children is the same when joining primary school independent of their origin, class, income or gender. All kids will get tested by a public medical officer by the end of the kindergarten year on whether they are ready to join primary school or still need to get held back for another year in nursery school.

A fine gets imposed on parents not applying their child for a spot in kindergarten when it gets four years old. The fine is around 180 and 1,000 Tacks ($200-1,100), depending on the family's income. Parents can prevent such a fine by proving their child is not ready for nursery school yet. The proof is normally a doctor's note by a public medical officer attesting the inability of a child to visit nursery school. In all circumstances a child can only get held back for not longer than one year from visiting nursery school or getting promoted to primary school. This means the latest age a child can join nursery school is 6 and the latest age a child can get promoted to primary school is 8.

Primary School

The primary school in Gianatla covers six years in which children are taught basic social skills, and the knowledge and competences needed for secondary education. The children will normally get put into one class, which will stay together until the end of primary school. This shall help building up strong bonds to their classmates. Another concept used to achieve that goal, especially between 1st and 4th grade, is to form "group tables". Two tables are put together, so a group of four children can sit at "one table".

Each lesson starts and ends with an acoustic signal, e.g. with a bell, that's audible throughout the entire school building. A normal lesson takes 45 minutes, but many schools moved to the "block system", where one lesson takes 90 minutes and the teacher can decide together with the students on when to have a five minute break inside that lesson. The advantage of this being, to maintain a certain workflow for the teacher and the students and to place a pause depending on the intensity of the lesson rather than just based on time. Between the 2nd and 3rd, and the 4th and 5th lesson there is a 20 minute break. Keeping that in mind a normal day of school normally extends from 8:00 A.M. until between 11:30 A.M. and 1:25 P.M., depending on the child's grade. Many primary schools offer a Hort (after school care center) after school, where the children can stay until up to 4 P.M., where they are playing with their classmates or doing their homework.

Depending on the school year, the children have a different amount of weekly lessons in school:

1st/2nd grade:	21
3rd/4th grade:	25
5th/6th grade:	30

The lessons cover the following subjects:

Subject	Classes	Hours per Week	Notes
Alman	1-6	6 (1st-4th grade) 5 (5th-6th grade)
Maths	1-6	6 (1st-4th grade) 5 (5th-6th grade)
Arts	1-6	2	Often divided into 1/2 year of art for tinkering and drawing and 1/2 year of music
PE	1-6	2	Playful athletic activity to learn teamwork, strengthen the bonds between the children, improve motor skills and in some schools learning self-defense
General Studies	1-4	3	Covers topics related to daily life, e.g. "How do seasons work?" or "How does wheat become bread?"
Project Groups	1-4	2	Project groups are extracurricular activities like a sports club, a club to learn an instrument or, as of 3rd grade, to study Atlantic. Atlantic courses are mostly provided in Atlantis and Greater Gianatla and can also get taken by 5th and 6th grade students.
Austral	3-6	4
GPG	5-6	3	History, Politics and Geography. Replacement for General Studies.
Science	5-6	3	Physics and Biology. Replacement for "General Studies".
Ethics	5-6	3	Replacement for "General Studies"

At the end of a school year, the children get a report from their teacher. The report describes, what the child has learnt, how developed its social and motor skills are and how it performed in the individual subjects. The latter gets shown with marks ranging from 1 (A) to 6 (F). If a child has a 5 or 6 as a mark in at least two subjects, this child needs to repeat a class. Repeating a class voluntarily is also possible though as well as skipping a class, if the performance is exceptionally good and the teacher suggests such a grade skip too. There's an additional report after 1/2 of a school year in 6th grade. That half-year-report is the basis, that decides what types of secondary school the student has qualified and thus can apply for.

Secondary Education

After passing the 6th grade, children change their school. From the 7th grade onward they either visit middle school, real school or grammar school, depending on their performance in primary school.
Depending on their performance in secondary school, a student might skip a grade or step back for one year. The only non-skippable grade is 10th grade.

School types

Middle School

Middle school is a type of secondary school, that extends over 4 years, conveying the most common knowledge to its mostly more technically adept students. The learning rate is slower than in the other school types. The highest graduation achievable is the Realschulabschluss (real school graduation).

Real School

Real school is a type of secondary school, that extends over 4-7 years, conveying basic common knowledge to their performancewise intermediate students. Often those schools adopted a system of "Basic courses" with a normal learning rate and "Advanced courses" with a learning rate comparable to that of grammar school students. The highest graduation achievable is the Fachabitur (technical Abitur).

Grammar School

Grammar school is a type of secondary school, that extends over 6 years, conveying an extended amount of knowledge and skills, especially useful if the student plans on studying at university, on a higher learning rate. The highest graduation achievable is the Abitur.

Lessons and Subjects

Like in primary school one lesson equals 45 minutes and most schools "block" their lessons. The big breaks are 20 (1st between 2nd and 3rd lesson), 15 (2nd between 4th and 5th lesson) or 10 (3rd between 6th and 7th lesson ff.) minutes long. There are no after school care centers in secondary schools, moreover students may leave the school area as of 11th grade in free lessons they might have.

Students usually have a minimum of 33 lessons per week (grammar school students at least 4 more lessons) until 10th grade.
The reason for this is, that the ministry of education set a mandatory set of subjects, all secondary schools need to teach (the number of lessons taught can vary depending on the school):

Subject	Classes	Hours per Week	Notes
Alman	7-10	4
Austral	7-10	4
Maths	7-10	4
Biology	7-10	2
Chemistry	7-10	2
Physics	7-10	2
History	7-10	3
Ethics	7-10	2
Arts	7-10	2	Often one year arts and one year music alternating
PE	7-10	2	Student can choose a sport the school offers. The student may not take a course for more than one consecutive half-year.
2nd foreign language (only grammar school)	7-10	4	Student may choose one language. Most grammar schools offer at least French and Atlantic, some also Japanese, Sedunnic, Erinoran or Spanish.
Home Economics	7-9	4	Subject teaching about everyday stuff like cooking, baking, sewing, gardening, etc.
Geography	7-8	2
Politics	9-10	2
Daily Life	10	4	Subject teaching how to do taxes, what to pay attention for when choosing an insurance, etc.

Oftentimes each school also offers voluntarily an individual set of other subjects such as Economy, IT, Drama or more language classes. It's also possible for a school to merge certain subjects as long as they can teach the basic curriculum to their students. Next to the normal subjects, many schools offer extracurricular activities in the afternoon hours, but those aren't as popular in Gianatla as elsewhere.

Graduation

SMR-Test

The SMR-Test ("SMR" standing for "Sonderschule, Mittelschule, Realschule") marks the end of middle and special school. All students partake in the SMR-Test at the end of 10th grade. The SMR-performance shapes the future of most of the students, as it can be used as a first key to higher education. The SMR consists of three standardised written 180-minute exams (one in Alman, Austral and Maths each), one standardised 20-minute oral exam in Austral and one presentation exam in a subject and for a topic of the student's choice (except for Alman, Austral and Maths). In the written exams students can achieve 100 points each, while the oral exam and the presentation get rated from 0 to 15, 15 being the best score. Overall a student can reach 330 points at max.

A student reaching up to 25% of the achievable points (0-82 points) gains the Sonderschulabschluss (special school graduation). This type of graduation qualifies the student to work in a sheltered workshop or to apply for a job this graduation is sufficient for.

A student reaching more than 25%, but less than 50% of the achievable points (83-165 points) gains the Mittelschulabschluss (middle school graduation). This type of graduation qualifies the student to apply for Fachschule (vocational school or for a job this graduation is sufficient for.

A student reaching more than 50% of the achievable points (166-330 points) gains the Realschulabschluss (real school graduation). This type of graduation qualifies the student to apply for Fachschule, a job this graduation is sufficient for, or to continue the Realschule to graduate with the technical Abitur after three more years. If the real school student reached 75% or more of the achievable points (247+ points), they furthermore may change to grammar school and graduate with the common Abitur after two years.

Grammar school students only need to reach at least 50% of the achievable points (165 points) for being allowed to continue their journey to the Abitur.

Abitur

There are two kinds of Abitur prevalent in Gianatla: the technical and the common Abitur. These two differ only in two points:

the classes a student can pick to graduate in
the amount of courses a student can study in at university or college

With a technical Abitur students mostly get taught in very distinct classes like "Economy for future start-up founders" or "Psychology for Beginners". Those are based on the field of interest a student has (e.g. a student choosing an economic profile does not have as many classes on law and law enforcement as a student with an administrative profile). There are only three subjects (Alman, Maths and Politics) that all students have. Together with two "advanced courses" the students choose for themselves at the beginning of 12th grade, these are the examination subjects.

The common Abitur continues to work with the subjects of 7th-10th grade. The students also have to choose two advanced courses and need to continue doing German, Maths, one humanistic subject (like e.g. History) and one foreign language (each of these can be chosen as advanced course too). Other than that they can choose almost freely which subjects to continue and which to abandon on their way to graduation, as long as they have a minimum number of 30 lessons per week. The examination subjects are the two advanced courses and furthermore have to include one humanistic subject, one linguistic-artistic subject and one mathematic-scientific subject.

Both Abitur-exams consist of three written, one oral and one presentation exam. A student graduates, if their marks equal at least an average of 4.0.

The technical Abitur can only get used for university or college studies in the field of the profile the student chose at the beginning of 12th grade, while the common Abitur grants the student to study any subject at university or college.

At the end of a school year, the grade graduating from school normally plans a party for the entire school to celebrate their achievement, where teachers get mocked and games get played, while loud music entertains the masses. Some schools needed to ban such festivities due to them being too noisy or due to graduates drinking (too much) alcohol inside of the school. An approach to celebrate graduation that's gaining more popularity in recent years, is the planning of a graduation ball at a club or a similar party location, and a graduation trip to a foreign country, mainly to party.

Evening grammar school

All inhabitants of Gianatla that have a Realschulabschluss or a comparable graduation may enroll in an Abendgymnasium (evening grammar school). There they can do their common Abitur at a later point in their life. Evening grammar schools are not free though, which is one of the reasons, why not many people are taking this opportunity.

Tertiary Education

Upon graduating Gianlucians educate themselves in a specialised field. This can happen on three ways: an apprenticeship, studying at college and studying at university.

Dual Apprenticeship

The most common way on specialising in a certain work field is by doing an apprenticeship. Unlike other countries, Gianatla follows a "dual apprenticeship" model, where the apprentices alternate between serving a practical block at their company and having a theoretical block at a vocational school. Each block extends over 3 months. At the end of the apprenticeship there is an official oral and written exam about mixed subjects important to a profession. The apprentice needs to pass both examinations to pass the apprenticeship and work in low management positions.

All graduates with exceptional performances (a score between 1.0 and 1.5) or with 7 years of work experience automatically gain the right to enroll at a Fachhochschule (college; short: FH) to take courses, qualifying them for higher management positions.

Colleges and Universities

Colleges and Universities in Gianatla are funded by the government, but enjoy complete freedom of research and teaching. In general no tuition needs to be paid, however all universities and colleges take an administrative fee of between 150 and 350 Tacks ($165-390) each semester to pay for their cafeterias, administrative workers, parts of their research and a compulsory ticket for public transport.

At colleges and universities Gianlucians can receive the highest form of education. There are 6 universities and 10 FHs in Gianatla, the oldest of which being the University of Neptune in Atlantis, that opened its gates in 1477 and was a place of research and lecturing ever since then.

The enrolled students take part in seminars and lectures and almost always need to do an internship in their field of study.
After three to four years most students graduate with a bachelor's degree, after two to three more years with a master's degree in their chosen profession. A doctorate or habilitation might follow afterwards, but in most cases does not come along with major advantages.

Special Schools

Sonderschulen are a special type of school for children with a disability, which demands such measures that an inclusion in normal schools is almost impossible or at least very difficult.
It covers the entire primary and secondary education between 1st and 10th grade. All class rooms have at least two teachers and at max 8 children assigned to them.

Most students enrolled in such a type of school end up with a special school graduation, that does not even have to be achieved via the standardised SMR-Test, as special schools may create their own graduation exam.

Special schools are getting criticised as a method to keep "unwanted people" away from society, by locking them in a special school and later on in "special jobs", seeing that most graduates do not have the chance to attend a vocational school or even try to graduate with Abitur. On the other hand children with stronger deficits do get more care and more time in these kinds of schools, that they would miss in normal school types. First tests for a stronger inclusion of the average special school pupil were made, but the results are ambiguous.

Life-long learning

The government of Gianatla officially supports the initiative of life-long learning and encourages its population to always seek for new skills and knowledge to obtain. This shall happen through evening grammar schools, community colleges and by establishing an easy way retrain oneself.

After the election of 2017 the coalition parties agreed on putting more money into scholarships for re-trainees and expanding the curriculums of most community colleges by defining a new standard on what courses need to be offered everywhere. As of January 2020 such a new curriculum was not put into place yet.