Offenbach Education and Training Report (EBO) 2024 published

The social, economic and financial conditions as well as the supply of skilled workers have a significant influence on the local education system. The financial conditions for the city of Offenbach have deteriorated in 2024. While it was still able to generate trade tax revenue of EUR 82 million in the EEO reporting year 2023, revenue will fall in 2024 as the number of cases for mandatory municipal tasks in the social sectors increases. Compared to 2020, population growth will continue in 2023: Almost 145,000 people live in Offenbach this year (+3.2 percent compared to 2020), with an increasing proportion of younger people. Offenbach therefore remains a young city and must continue to drive forward the expansion of its childcare, education and learning landscapes - the current financial situation restricts the scope for action here (for the coming years).

The proportion of non-Germans in the population will be 42% in 2023 (almost a third in the age groups 0 to under 21 years and 45% in the group 21 years and older). If the German population with a history of migration is included, 66.5 percent of Offenbach's population will have a migration background by the end of 2023, and 80 percent (and more) in the younger age groups. This is not a new finding, but it continues to pose qualitative challenges for the city and educational institutions, such as the expansion of support, integration and language services for new immigrants, but also for children, young people and adults who have been living here for some time and who have poorer educational opportunities due to poverty-threatened living conditions.

In addition, as a result of Corona, there are the (further) emerging, catch-up and catch-up educational needs as well as the improvement of educational participation and opportunities for people who do not make their way into educational institutions "on their own" (keywords: outreach, low-threshold learning and educational opportunities). This is also necessary in light of demographic changes and the emerging shortage of skilled workers.

In 2023, the supply of places for children under 3 years of age (U3) and for 3 to under 6-year-olds has improved. In the U3 sector, the coverage rate (the ratio of nursery places for 45% of under 3-year-olds compared to supply) has risen to 89%. For places for children from the age of three until they start school, 98% of this age group is expected to be covered in accordance with the city council resolution. In relation to supply, this results in a coverage rate of 102% for the city as a whole in 2023.

For the first time, the EEO provides information from the employment agency's skilled labor statistics. A total of 1,283 educators are employed in childcare and education by providers of facilities in the city of Offenbach. 17 percent are aged 55 and over and are expected to retire in the next ten years. The statistics show that there is a need for (male) educators, as only one in eight educators is a man.

For Sabine Groß, Head of the Children and Youth Department, the further expansion of early education services is a key concern:

1,381 children were enrolled in school in the reporting year, 83% regularly and 11% late (as they are already required to attend school for the 2021/22 school year). Boys with a migration background are proportionally overrepresented in late enrollment at 15 percent. This group is also confronted with difficult starting conditions when it comes to the first educational qualification (see below).

In accordance with the city council resolution, school-specific data on school swimming in year 3 will be collected for the first time in EBO 2024. This shows that of the 1,042 children who took part in swimming lessons in this grade in the 2022/23 school year, 114 cannot swim and 212 cannot swim sufficiently. Taken together, this is almost a third of the 1,042 swimming children.

The number of childcare and all-day places in elementary school has increased compared to the EBO 2021 (+152 places). Due to the increase in the number of pupils (+466), the city-wide childcare rate fell slightly to 46.1% in the 2022/23 school year (2019/20: 47.8%). In preparation for the legal entitlement to all-day care, Head of Education Paul-Gerhard Weiß explains: "Our city education authority is in talks with all schools in collaboration with the state education authority. We would like to significantly expand our activities in this area. We have therefore earmarked two additional posts for this area from this year."

The number of intensive classes in which immigrant children and young people are taught has increased in the 2022/23 school year: in the reporting year, there are 476 children and young people in 32 intensive classes at general education schools (2019/20: 322 children/22 intensive classes). One reason for the increase is that many elementary school converted their intensive courses into intensive classes in 2022, but the war of aggression in Ukraine and the resulting refugee movements also led to more consultations and referrals of children and young people to language support services.

In the 2022/23 school year, 811 children and young people (2019/20: 838) have special educational needs status. Of these, 616 (76%) attend classes at a special school and 195 (24%) attend inclusive classes at a general education school. Compared to the EBO 2021, this inclusion rate is almost constant.

The most common school-leaving qualification in summer 2023 is the Realschulabschluss (43%), followed by the Allgemeine Hochschulreife (29%). 53 graduates (4.4 percent) leave school without a secondary general school certificate (2019/20: 2.2 percent) and 64 (5.3 percent) with a vocational qualification (2019/20: 3.8 percent). Based on the first school-leaving qualification, the group of male graduates with a migration background continues to have the most difficult starting conditions statistically. Compared to the other groups (e.g. leavers without a migration background, female leavers with a migration background). Male leavers with a migrant background have the highest proportion of "without" and "with lower secondary school leaving certificate" and the lowest proportion of "with A-levels". This means that the trend of previous years will continue in 2023.

"The resources within the framework of the Hessian program "Löwenstark der - BildungsKick" as well as support offers to overcome corona-related deficits in the city were well received by the schools and used in numerous projects and individual measures. Many of the measures within the Löwenstark programme were aimed at stabilizing pupils emotionally and socially in the period after the pandemic. In addition, the funds were also used to compensate for deficits at school. The Löwenstark program expired in summer 2024 after a period of three years. As a result, it can be assumed that the measures will also have a positive impact on the pass rate for school-leaving certificates," explains Markus Winter, Head of Department at the State Education Authority for the city and district of Offenbach am Main.

The situation at vhs Offenbach for 2023 can be summarized with the short description "Full resumption of consulting, course and event operations". This resumption marks the end of the (partial) closures of the coronavirus years. In 2023, the vhs recorded a total of 11,218 (2020: 10,339) participants. It is thus approaching the pre-pandemic level again. Dirk Wolk-Pöhlmann, head of the vhs: "The educational steps to the vhs entrance are often a hurdle. Today, access to education needs to be more accessible. The vhs achieves this through projects such as "InSole - learning in social spaces", a cooperation between the vhs, the Offenbach basic education center and the Nordend district office. This is about second-chance education, i.e. catching up on school-leaving qualifications, learning to read, write or acquire digital know-how. Together with the neighborhood management in Nordend, the vhs offers the "Rat und Tat Café", an open learning meeting that takes place every two weeks on the premises of the district office. Learners, for whom going to the vhs can initially be an obstacle, can be better addressed thanks to the open and low-threshold nature of the offer and the proximity to their homes."

For the city library, 2023 is also the year in which the use of library services almost reaches pre-corona levels again. In the reporting year, the city library almost reached the 2018/19 level again with 426,666 total loans.

The education indicator presented in Chapter F of the EEO records the educational participation of children and young people with a migrant background in childcare and educational institutions. It is positive that participation is not declining in any of the ten key figures. Looking at the development over a longer period (2016-2023), there are major improvements in educational participation in the areas of "children under 3 years of age in care", "children aged 3 to under 6 years of age in care", "start at grammar school" and "transition to in-company training".