In collaboration with the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of Germany’s federal states, the Federal Foreign Office has launched a law on German schools abroad. This act grants these schools an entitlement to funding for the first time.

The 141 German schools abroad are intended to project a lasting positive image of Germany. They provide the opportunity for children from different cultures to meet, learn together and to engage in dialogue. They thus make an important contribution towards promoting German language and culture as well as attracting highly qualified students and workers. They are part of a values-oriented foreign policy and provide key educational impetus in the exchange with schools of the respective host country.

Cornelia Pieper, the Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office responsible for cultural relations and education policy, stressed:

The act adopted today will make it possible to promote the German schools abroad in a manner which reflects their importance and makes them fit for the future.

Those schools operated with the necessary degree of stability, continuity and quality will, in future, no longer receive their funding in the form of a voluntary payment by the Federal Government but, rather, on the basis of a legal right.

The German Government thus intends to increase planning security for German schools abroad and their pupils and, at the same time, to better promote schools which are economically efficient and future-oriented.