NRW’s Education Minister Dorothee Feller (CDU) is announcing far-reaching changes in the curriculum for the upper level and the graduation exam. The introduction of a fifth graduation track for students entering the upper level in 2026, such as a presentation exam or new project courses, will change many familiar routines, Feller told the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung.
“With five graduation tracks, for example, two natural sciences can be chosen as graduation subjects. This is not possible with four graduation tracks. Or someone who has music, art, or sports in their graduation exam no longer has to choose math as a compulsory subject” Feller said. Math, however, will remain a compulsory subject until graduation.
The minister also announced that she will advocate in the education minister’s conference for the duration of the graduation exams to be reduced. This is because, “we believe that the performance can be tested in a shorter time as well. We already want to achieve in NRW that the exams written in the last two years before graduation do not have to be as long as the graduation exams themselves.”
Feller compared the reduction of the exam time to training for a long-distance run: “I don’t have to have run a whole marathon beforehand to be able to run 42 kilometers, 30-kilometer runs are sufficient for preparation” she said.