Wirtschaftsgymnasium
Encyclopedia
A Wirtschaftsgymnasium is a kind of school in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. Unlike the German Gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...

, which spans grades (years) 5 to 13, the Wirtschaftsgymnasium has only the top three grades (Oberstufe) and specializes in teaching business-related topics beside the normal subjects in the Gymnasium.

Admission

Admission to the Wirtschaftsgymnasium is voluntary for all students in the tenth year of the Realschule
Realschule
The Realschule is a type of secondary school in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. It has also existed in Croatia , Denmark , Sweden , Hungary and in the Russian Empire .-History:The Realschule was an outgrowth of the rationalism and empiricism of the seventeenth and...

 or the same year at the Gymnasium. In order to be allowed to attend a Wirtschaftsgymnasium, a student from the Realschule needs satisfactory grades (marks) in the main subjects German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

, Mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

 and English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, namely an average grade better than 3.0 (in the German grade system, which goes from 1 (best) to 6 (worst). Moreover, the student is not allowed to have grades worse than 4.0 in the three aforementioned subjects. Students from the Gymnasium need marks (grades) that would have allowed them to move up to the next grade (year) at Gymnasium.

If too many students apply for admission for a specific Wirtschaftsgymnasium, the school is allowed to set a higher admissions standard.

Subjects

In Germany, education is the responsibility of the federal state (Land
States of Germany
Germany is made up of sixteen which are partly sovereign constituent states of the Federal Republic of Germany. Land literally translates as "country", and constitutionally speaking, they are constituent countries...

); so the requirements and classes differ from state to state. The following article gives the situation in Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...

.

In the first year at Wirtschaftsgymnasium (11th grade, the eleventh year of school education), pupils can take another foreign language in addition to English (which is compulsory). Generally, the alternatives differ from school to school, but French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 are the most common. If a school has no teacher for Spanish, all students are required to take French.

The type of language course that a student is permitted to take depends on what school the student previously attended. A student who previously attended a Gymnasium, or took the French class at the Realschule, will already have had three years of a second foreign language (usually French) and may take the advanced course in French (Französich - Niveau A) or the beginners' course in Spanish (Spanisch - Niveau B). If the student comes from a Realschule and had no former second foreign language, he or she is free to choose between the beginners' class in French or Spanish (Französisch / Spanisch - Niveau B).

All pupils are required to take the subject Economics and Business Accounting (Betriebs- und Volkswirtschaftslehre mit wirtschaftlichem Rechnungswesen, VBRW for short). In Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...

, students are required to attend six lessons (of 45 minutes) a week in this subject.

In the second year, the Kursstufe begins. All marks now count toward Abitur
Abitur
Abitur is a designation used in Germany, Finland and Estonia for final exams that pupils take at the end of their secondary education, usually after 12 or 13 years of schooling, see also for Germany Abitur after twelve years.The Zeugnis der Allgemeinen Hochschulreife, often referred to as...

, the final exam, passing which permits students to attend universities in Germany.

Students now have to take one additional major subject (Leistungskurs) in addition to the compulsory major subject of Economics and Business Accounting.

Exams

To be awarded a pass in the final Abitur exam, students must obtain a pass in Economics and Business Accounting, one language (German, English or their second foreign language) and three others subjects from their timetable. Students who took a beginners' course in a second foreign language are only allowed to take an oral exam in this subject.

External links

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