When the powerful sound of the strings from Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps rings out in the corridors of the Pestalozzi School, everyone in the building knows that classes will be starting in five minutes. And a little later, when the loudspeakers play the merry sounds of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, it means it’s time to get to work. The teachers close the classroom doors, the students take their seats. The classic gong hasn’t been heard at the Colegio Pestalozzi in Buenos Aires for a long time. “It makes for a livelier start to lessons,” says Claudia Frey-Krummacher. For almost nine years now she has been principal of a school whose reputation is so good that there are long waiting lists for places.
“El Pesta”, as the Argentines like to call the Colegio, is one of 37 German international schools in Latin America – out of a total of 140 worldwide. “Just ten years ago parents sent their children to this school not because German was taught here, but despite the fact. Things are different today. The combination of German and English attracts a lot of people,” says Frey-Krummacher. Indeed, the number of students attending German schools abroad has been rising steadily since 2006 – from 70,000 to 81,000. Another 270,000 children and adolescents are learning German at 870 schools with the support of the Central Agency for Schools Abroad (ZfA). They offer both the national school-leaving qualifications in the respective countries and the DSD, the German language diploma. This combination qualifies them for university entrance in Germany.
The Pestalozzi School has always been something special in Argentina. Jewish immigrants who fled Germany to Buenos Aires in the 1930s were refused places at German schools, so the editor of the Argentinische Tageblatt newspaper, Ernesto Alemann, founded a new, bilingual school that was open to all religions. Today at the Colegio in the urban district of Belgrano, although teaching is based on the Argentine curriculum, all students learn English and German. They take the IB, the International Baccalaureate exam, which enables them to go on to study in Germany and many other countries in the world.
A colour copy of a certificate pinned on a bulletin board in principal Frey-Krummacher’s office is the pride of the school: a few months ago the Colegio was the first German school in South America to receive the award “Excellent German School Abroad”. The inspectors spoke to everyone at the school from the principal to the security personnel. Like many parents, they were convinced by what they heard. “It was the choice of languages and quality of education that clinched it for us,” says Diego Dimentstein, father of three students attending the “Pesta”. The youngest, Federico is four years old and goes to the kindergarten. Nicolás, 7, is in first grade and the oldest, Juliana, in the sixth. Her German is remarkable. “I’m looking forward to the student exchange,” says the 11-year-old.
The Colegio Pestalozzi is one of 1,500 schools worldwide that are being promoted by an initiative called “Schools: Partners for the Future” (PASCH), which was initiated by the Federal Foreign Office. The aim of the initiative is to awaken an interest in Germany and its language among young people and to convey a modern image of Germany. In Argentina the network covers 32 other PASCH schools in addition to the Colegio Pestalozzi; they include 3 German schools abroad, 17 schools offering the DSD diploma, and 12 so-called Fit schools, where German teaching is being started or expanded. The schools are given support with additional teaching and specialist staff, student scholarships, student exchanges, equipment and materials. Also important are the advanced training courses for teachers on such topics as phonetics, grammar teaching, using the Internet in the classroom, and the provision of teaching materials. “At some schools, German is the only subject for which the children have a textbook,” says Ines Patzig-Bartsch of the Goethe Institute in Buenos Aires, which oversees the Fit schools in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and Paraguay.
The Colégio Visconde de Porto Seguro in São Paulo is the world’s largest German school abroad. A total of 11,000 children and young people are taught at seven locations. The youngest are 18 months old and attend the nursery; the oldest are 18 years old and will soon be leaving school. Most are Brazilians. “The demand is great,” says principal Matthias Holtmann. He is proud of the Escola da Comunidade, a social project in which 1,800 students from neighbouring favelas are taught at the Colégio without having to pay the otherwise mandatory school fees.
Worldwide, a total of 11,000 young people a year complete their education at a German school with an entrance qualification for German higher education. Students from German schools abroad and holders of the DSD language diploma are very welcome in Germany; they have a reputation for being especially self-sufficient and are more successful in higher education than other international students. The DAAD has initiated special scholarship programmes for graduates of the schools – ranging from taster courses to full degree programmes.
