Best Practice

Gradually then suddenly: Educational inequality in secondary schools

Narrowing the Gap Poverty
Many teachers know all too well the cost of educational inequality in the UK, but a similar battle is raging in Germany between the have and have nots. Writing from Berlin, teacher David Kazamias explains


The 2018 PISA rankings and its latest “education at a glance” indicators (2021) confirm what many in education already knew: that in many modern social democratic countries educational inequality is on the rise.

And while shocking levels of inequality in the UK have been well documented, especially by this journal, many will have been surprised to learn that Germany suffers from a similar chasm in educational outcomes.

How do the UK and Germany’s school systems generate such extreme levels of educational inequality? An apt response can be taken from Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, where upon being asked how he became bankrupt, the war veteran Mike replies: “Two ways (...) gradually and then suddenly.”

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