In Germany the general secondary school system has been divided into three major types of schools: the Gymnasium, a grammar school preparing students for higher education and finishing with the final examination Abitur after 12th
or 13th grade; the Realschule, a secondary school focusing on the education of intermediate students and finishing with the final examination Mittlere Reife after 10th grade, and the Hauptschule, a secondary school preparing students for vocational education and finishing with the final examination Hauptschulabschluss after 9th grade.
According to a Statista survey on the number of students at general education schools in Germany by type of school in the 2014/2015 school year, 2.303.864 students attended a Gymnasium, 950.799 attended a Realschule and 507.528 went to a Hauptschule. However, if one analyses the relative share of children with a migratory background in the different types of schools in the 2013/2014 school year, it becomes clear that 41.4% of them attended an Abendschule (evening school), 18.5% attended a Hauptschule, 7.4% attended a Realschule and only 4.1% attended a Gymnasium.
According to a dossier of the Federal Agency for Civic Education, a child without a migratory background has five times greater chances of being proposed for grammar school after fourth grade than a child with a migration history. Even with a comparable social background and reading literacy, the chances of students without a migration background to receive a recommendation for a “Gymnasium” are better by a factor of 1.7.