In the 2025/2026 school year, roughly 11.5 million students were enrolled in Germany’s general, vocational, and health‑care schools. According to preliminary figures released by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on Wednesday, this represents an increase of 0.7 % – or 84,300 pupils – over the previous school year, marking a fourth consecutive year of growth. The rise in enrollment aligns with a 0.8 % growth in the population of children and adolescents aged five to 19 at the end of 2024, compared with the end of 2023.
Among general‑education schools, the student count climbed 0.9 % to about nine million. In almost every federal state the numbers grew compared with 2024/2025, with the exceptions of Thuringia (a decline of 0.5 %), Saarland (-0.3 %), and Berlin (-0.1 %). Bavaria recorded the most substantial increase at 2.9 % – an addition of 38,600 students. That surge is largely attributable to Bavaria’s return to the nine‑year Gymnasium format, which means pupils remain one year longer in the secondary school system; this change produced an “incomplete” graduating class in 2025.
The number of students in vocational schools dipped modestly by 0.4 % to 2.3 million.
Of the total 11.5 million pupils, 1.9 million hold only a foreign nationality, a rise of 3.6 % over the 2024/2025 data and representing 17 % of all students.