Low-Achieving School-Leavers in Germany: Who Are They and Where Do They Go?

Abstract

In light of educational expansion in Germany, school-leavers with a lower secondary school certificate or less are at risk of being left behind. In this chapter, we first compare their parental resources, cognitive skills, and non-cognitive skills to those of school-leavers with an intermediate school certificate. Second, we investigate whether these low achievers can improve their educational attainment after school by either catching up on school certificates or entering vocational training. We analyse their transitions to vocational education using “With” hier streichen sequence analyses. Using data from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), we show that although low-achieving school-leavers are, on average, not as well-endowed with agentic and social resources as other groups, they are otherwise quite heterogeneous. Many have similar cognitive and non-cognitive skills to school-leavers with an intermediate school certificate who usually manage to enter vocational training. However, this potential often remains undiscovered, because considerable proportions of low achievers do not improve their school certificates and do not manage to enter vocational education—even several years after leaving school. We also show that transition patterns vary by school type, with students from special needs schools being especially disadvantaged compared to those from regular schools.

1 Introduction

The research for this chapter was supported by funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) for the project ‘New opportunities or reinforced disadvantages? Variation in returns to low-achieving school leavers’ participation in pre-vocational training programmes’ (Grant Number: SO 430/8–2).

In light of educational expansion and the increasing skill requirements in labour markets, young people with low levels of education are at risk of being left behind. Education is crucial to succeed on the labour market (and beyond). Leaving school with low levels of education limits further educational opportunities and might be detrimental in both the short and long term. In addition, agentic and social resources that young adults have at their disposal are also known to be important for further learning opportunities and labour market transitions (Schoon & Lyons-Amos, 2016).

Against this background, we focus on low-achieving school-leavers in Germany, asking who they are and how they fare after leaving school. To this end, we first look at the variation among low-achieving school-leavers and shed light on the question whether low school achievement is associated with lower levels of cognitive and non-cognitive skills, poorer vocational orientation, and lower parental resources. Second, we look at the school-to-work transitions of these youths. In this regard, we investigate whether low achievers can improve their educational achievement after leaving general schooling by catching up on school certificates or by entering vocational training. This is because both could help lower their later labour market vulnerability. Furthermore, we explore their training opportunities after school to investigate the consequences of their low educational achievement for their school-to-work transitions. Using sequence analysis, we examine direct and indirect pathways into vocational education, but we also look at the pathways of those who do not manage to enter vocational training or who drop out.

We define low school achievement by the school-leaving certificate obtained at the end of secondary education: low-achieving school-leavers are young people who have obtained only an (extended) lower secondary certificate or no school-leaving certificate at all (for a justification of this definition see below). We use data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) following a cohort of young people who attended Grade 9 in 2010 (Blossfeld et al., 2011; Ludwig-Mayerhofer et al., 2019).¹ Its biannual and then annual panel waves provide both a rich set of background information, cognitive and non-cognitive measures, and detailed information on students’ life courses since Grade 9.

2 The German Institutional Context

In the highly stratified German school system, students are tracked into different school types as early as age 10–12 and can obtain different school-leaving certificates at the end of secondary education: the (extended) lower secondary certificate, the intermediate certificate, or the university entrance qualification (the Abitur). Students may also leave general schooling without a school-leaving certificate.

Over time, the German school system has become less stratified. Some educational reforms and general trends of educational expansion have resulted in distributional changes in terms of both the types of school attended and the school-leaving certificates. In the 1960s, more than 60% of students in lower secondary education attended the Hauptschule; by 2012 (the school-leaving year of our cohort), this proportion had fallen to only 18%, and by 2019, it had decreased to only 9% (BMBF Datenportal, own calculations).² At the same time, the proportion of students attending intermediate schools (Realschule), comprehensive schools, and grammar schools (Gymnasium) has increased.³

Correspondingly, the proportion of school-leavers who leave school with an (extended) lower secondary certificate has fallen from around 60% in the 1960s to less than one-fifth (18%) in 2012 (and 17% in 2019). Likewise, the proportion of young people without a school-leaving certificate has decreased from about one-fifth to only 5%. In contrast, the proportion of young people leaving school with at least an intermediate school certificate has increased enormously. Thus, today, school-leavers who leave school without any certificate or with only an (extended) lower secondary school certificate constitute a vulnerable group of low-achieving youth.

Young people with no or only a lower secondary certificate have usually attended the lowest school type, the Hauptschule, and they used to account for the majority of school-leavers. Today, all school-leaving certificates, except for the university entrance qualification Abitur, can be obtained formally at all secondary school types. We therefore use the school-leaving certificate (instead of the school type) as defining criterion for belonging to the group of low-achieving school-leavers.

A special feature of the German school system is that special needs schools continue to exist as an independent school type in all federal states. Germany has established eight different school types in this category depending on the kind of special need. Students from these schools usually leave without a recognized school-leaving certificate (e.g., about 72% in 2018) or only the lowest recognized school certificate (i.e., lower secondary certificate; about 24%) (National Education Report, 2020: Table D8-4web). Thus, they belong to the vulnerable group of low-achieving youth. Empirically, we limit our analyses to students from special needs schools for learning disabilities, because they constitute the largest group among students attending special needs schools (35.3%; National Education Report, 2018: Table D8-9web) and data on them are available in the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS).

3 Data Source

To examine the agentic and social resources of low-achieving school-leavers and their training opportunities after school, we use data from the NEPS cohort of young people who attended Grade 9 in 2010 when they were about 15 years of age. An oversampling of students from lower school tracks enables us to explore the within-group heterogeneity of low-achieving school-leavers. Moreover, this is one of the very few large-scale data sets that includes a representative sample of students from special needs schools for learning disabilities in Germany.

This data set comprises 16,425 students who have been surveyed once or twice a year since 2010. We use the data up to Wave 9, when students were approximately 19–20 years old (collected between autumn 2015 and spring 2016). The data set provides extensive information on cognitive and non-cognitive characteristics and, because it oversamples students from lower secondary schools and special needs schools for learning disabilities, it allows differentiated evaluations within the group of low-achieving school-leavers.

We are able to observe 12,602 respondents at least up until they left general schooling, meaning that we were able to determine their school-leaving certificate. Seventy per cent of these respondents also participated in Wave 9 and constitute our analytical sample; these include 3513 students (including 813 from special needs schools for learning disabilities) who left school after Grade 9 or 10 with no more than an (extended) lower secondary school certificate. The majority of them are male students (60%). For the descriptive analyses, we use the weights provided by the NEPS to account for the sampling design and panel attrition (Steinhauer & Zinn, 2016).

4 The Heterogeneity of Low-Achieving School-Leavers

In this section, we describe the heterogeneity of low-achieving school-leavers in terms of the school types they come from, their agentic resources, and their social resources. We follow Schoon and Lyons-Amos (2016) and distinguish between factors that are more related to individual agency (agentic resources) and structural constraints due to social background (social resources). Agentic resources refer to factors that enable young people to engage in active decision making. We include both cognitive and noncognitive resources and prior experiences. Social constraints, on the other hand, refer to poorer socioeconomic resources available to young adults and include parental education, employment status, and migration background.

4.1 What School Type Do They Come From?

We start by looking at the extent to which the type of school attended still determines the school-leaving certificate obtained. Baumert et al. (2008, p. 59) stated that the decoupling of school types and school-leaving certificates is probably the most important, albeit unplanned, development in the German school system. Yet, does this also apply to low-achieving school-leavers? To answer this question, we compare the school type attended in Grade 9 and the school-leaving certificate achieved. Based on NEPS data, we see that low-achieving school-leavers indeed attended different school types in Grade 9, with some of them even attending the academic track (the Gymnasium). However, a complete decoupling has not occurred, because there is still a clear relationship between school type and certificate. The majority of low-achieving school-leavers (64%) come from a lower secondary school (Hauptschule), and the majority of those without a school-leaving certificate come from a special needs school for learning disabilities (67%).

This is reflected in the composition of the low-achieving group: 60% of those without a school-leaving certificate attended a special needs school for learning disabilities in Grade 9, and 32% attended either a Hauptschule or the lower track in a school with multiple tracks. For those leaving school with a lower secondary certificate, 88% attended a lower secondary school or a school with multiple tracks. It is also worth noting that the majority of low-achieving school-leavers attended school until 10th grade, like those who left school with an intermediate certificate. Both groups therefore had a similar median school-leaving age (16.5 and 16.9 years, respectively). Thus, despite the aforementioned educational expansion (see Sect. 12.2), the association between low school achievement and school type is still rather strong. Does this strong correlation also apply to the agentic resources of the low-achieving group? In the following two sub-sections, we examine their agentic and social resources.

4.2 Agentic Resources

Low-achieving school-leavers are often assumed to be insufficiently mature to enter regular vocational education and training in Germany. The German Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit, 2006) defines school-leavers as being insufficiently mature when they lack cognitive skills and basic school knowledge (such as spelling, basic mathematical skills), non-cognitive skills (such as reliability and conscientiousness, social skills, and motivation), and a vocational orientation. Likewise, the existing literature often refers to low-achieving school-leavers as a rather homogeneous group (Solga, 2002; Solga & Wagner, 2001). In contrast, our analysis with NEPS data suggests that this group is quite heterogeneous, and that a substantial share of it cannot be described as insufficiently mature for training.

Figure 12.1 shows that low-achieving school-leavers are very heterogeneous in terms of their math and reading competencies and basic cognitive abilities (deductive reasoning).⁴ On average, they attain lower competence scores than school-leavers who left school with an intermediate school certificate. However, a substantial proportion of them have the same competence scores as school-leavers with an intermediate school-leaving certificate. On deductive reasoning, only school-leavers from special needs schools for learning disabilities show lower average scores than those from regular schools. The school-leaving certificate explains 38% of the variance in competencies and 22% of the variance in deductive reasoning.⁵ This means that, in terms of their cognitive potential, quite a few low-achieving school-leavers could have left school with an intermediate school certificate.

Fig. 12.1

Distribution of competencies and deductive reasoning by school-leaving certificate

Source: NEPS SC4 SUF 9.0.0, including respondents from schools for learning disabilities, weighted, own calculations

Measured in Grade 9, measures for math and reading competencies are not available for school-leavers from special needs schools

z-standardisation with a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1 based on total sample

Looking at the distribution of personality traits, the overlap between students with different school-leaving certificates is even greater than the overlap observed for cognitive skills (see Fig. 12.2). Thus, students with different school-leaving certificates are rather similar when it comes to conscientiousness, self-esteem, and self-reported prosocial behaviour. However, none of these non-cognitive characteristics have substantial explanatory power for respondents’ school-leaving certificates. For school-leavers without a school-leaving certificate, we find somewhat smaller overlaps, especially in the distribution of conscientiousness.

Fig. 12.2

Distribution of self-esteem, conscientiousness, and prosocial behaviour by school-leaving certificate

Source: NEPS SC4 SUF 9.0.0, including respondents from schools for learning disabilities, weighted, own calculations

Measured in Grade 9, measures for self-esteem and conscientiousness are not available for school-leavers from special needs schools

Self-esteem: Scale from 10 to 50, example item: ‘All in all, I am satisfied with myself’ (von Collani & Herzberg, 2003)

Conscientiousness: Scale of 1–5 based on responses to the questions, ‘How much do the following statements apply to you?’: ‘I am easy-going and tend to be a bit lazy’ (responses reversed) and ‘I am thorough’ (Rammstedt & John, 2007)

Prosocial behaviour: Behaviour aimed at increasing the well-being of others. Scale from 0 to 10, example item: ‘I try to be nice to other people, their feelings are important to me’ (Goodman et al., 1998)

Having considered the cognitive and non-cognitive dimensions of training (im)maturity, we now turn to vocational aspirations and orientations. We use several indicators (see Table 12.1). As a motivational resource, we look at both the idealistic and realistic occupational aspirations of both school-leavers and their parents (as perceived by respondents). The vast majority of low-achieving school-leavers planned to enter vocational training after school. This matches their parents’ aspirations for their children. In addition, the vast majority of students had developed realistic occupational aspirations by the start of Grade 9 (i.e., the occupations they expected to be trained in after taking their grades and other limiting factors into account). The average occupational status (ISEI) of realistic occupational aspirations of school-leavers without a school certificate is 32; for those with a lower secondary certificate, it is 38. Both averages are in the lower third of the ISEI scale.⁶ In contrast, adolescents with an intermediate school-leaving certificate have career aspirations with a mean ISEI score of 49—that is, in the middle third. The occupational status of students’ idealistic occupational aspirations (i.e., occupations that they would like to be trained in if there were no restrictions) is higher than their realistic aspirations. Low-achieving school-leavers’ idealistic aspirations pertain to occupations ranked in the middle third of the ISEI scale. This discrepancy between realistic and idealistic occupational aspirations indicates that school-leavers have adapted their aspirations in line with their realistic options (see Dombrowski, 2015). Hence, their realistic occupational aspirations and their high level of training orientation do not indicate severe problems in vocational orientation, contrary to the public debate about ‘training maturity’.

Table 12.1 Occupational and educational aspirations by school-leaving certificate (column percentages or arithmetic mean and standard deviation)

To identify the possible potential of learning motivation, Table 12.1 additionally shows which school-leaving certificate students aspired to attain when surveyed in Grade 9. These data on educational aspirations show clear differences between the desired, expected, and attained school-leaving certificate. Only 1% of those who left school without a certificate wished to do so (idealistic aspirations), and only 6% expected to do so (realistic aspirations). The discrepancy is also high among those who left school with a lower secondary certificate: only 23% wanted it and 60% expected it. Their parents also had—according to the information provided by their children in the survey—higher educational aspirations for them: the vast majority of parents would have liked their children to achieve at least an intermediate school certificate. As a point of reference, among the school-leavers with an intermediate certificate, the differences between the desired, expected, and attained school-leaving certificate are significantly smaller.

There are two possible ways of interpreting this: on the one hand, this high discrepancy between the expected and attained school-leaving certificate among low-achieving school-leavers can be regarded as problematic, because it indicates that they are often unable to assess their own performance accurately. On the other hand, the desire to attain a higher school-leaving certificate and to complete vocational training might indicate that these low-achieving school-leavers are still motivated to participate in education (at least in Grade 9). In other words, they have not yet lost their educational and occupational aspirations, despite their setbacks and their being labelled as low achievers (or even disabled) during their school years (see Knigge, 2009; Pfahl, 2011; Solga, 2004).

Overall, the findings on individual agentic resources indicate that—even with a rather narrow interpretation of ‘maturity for vocational training’—a notable proportion of low-achieving school-leavers are willing and mature enough to undergo vocational training in terms of their cognitive and non-cognitive skills as well as their vocational orientation. In all dimensions of training maturity, there is a clear overlap between low-achieving school-leavers and those with an intermediate certificate, although the latter are much more successful in entering regular vocational training (see Sect. 12.5 below). Moreover, we observed that some low-achieving school-leavers had the cognitive, non-cognitive, and motivational potential to acquire higher school-leaving certificates, but this remained undiscovered during their school time.

4.3 Social Resources

We now turn to social resources such as parents’ education, employment status, and immigrant background. Respondents are defined as having an immigrant background if they themselves or both their parents were born outside Germany. Table 12.2 provides information on the social background of the low-achieving school-leavers and of the school-leavers with an intermediate certificate—the latter as the comparison group. Among the low achievers, almost twice as many have an immigrant background compared to those with an intermediate certificate (22% vs 13%). Moreover, their parents’ educational attainment is significantly lower: four out of 10 low achievers have parents who also left school with a lower secondary certificate at most; in contrast, among school-leavers with an intermediate certificate, this figure is only around 2 out of 10. These figures are a clear indicator of the intergenerational transmission of educational attainment and inequality. Nevertheless, we also see a notable proportion of low-achieving school-leavers whose parents even obtained a university entrance qualification (17%).

Table 12.2 Social background characteristics by school-leaving certificate (column percentages or arithmetic mean and standard deviation)

The same applies to parental employment status: almost one half of school-leavers without a school certificate (48%) and almost two thirds of those with a lower secondary certificate (64%) have two employed parents. Thus, they can draw on experience and information from two employed parents in their school-to-work transition period. This proportion is quite high; yet it is significantly lower than that among those with an intermediate school certificate (75%).

Furthermore, the parents of low-achieving school-leavers tend to work in the lower segment of the labour market: the average occupational status is in the lower third of the ISEI scale. In contrast, the mean ISEI score for parents of respondents with an intermediate certificate is clearly in the middle third. But even here, we see remarkable variation shown by the standard deviation. Thus, even among parents of low-achieving school-leavers, there is a quite substantial number employed in jobs with a medium and possibly even high occupational status.

Overall, we do see the familiar finding of a strong association between school-leaving certificate and social background: low-achieving school-leavers are, on average, significantly more disadvantaged than those with an intermediate certificate. Thus, on average, low achievers do not have the same social resources at their disposal when looking for a training place. At the same time, the group of low-achieving school-leavers is by no means homogeneous: quite a substantial number of low achievers have good socio-economic resources that they can draw on in their school-to-work transition. In the next section, we examine whether this variation in agentic and social resources translates into variation in their school-to-work transition patterns; or, in other words, whether better individual and social resources indeed increase low achievers’ chances to improve their school-leaving certificates and enter vocational education.

5 School-to-Work Transitions

To improve their educational attainment, low-achieving school-leavers have two options after leaving general school: they can obtain an intermediate certificate at a vocational school in a so-called prevocational programme that is meant to prepare for vocational education (see Sect. 12.5.1) or they can gain a better qualification by successfully completing a regular vocational training programme (see Sect. 12.5.2). In the following, we look at school-leavers’ trajectories after leaving general schooling and explore how well low-achieving school-leavers succeeded in taking advantage of these two options during the observation period until autumn 2013 or autumn 2015/spring 2016 (Wave 9).

5.1 Improvement of School-Leaving Certificates

Table 12.3 shows the highest school-leaving certificate achieved in autumn 2015 compared with the school-leaving certificate attained before leaving general school. For those who left school after Grade 9, this is 4 years after leaving school; for those who left school after Grade 10 (the vast majority), this is 3 years after leaving school. The majority of school-leavers who left school without a certificate had not achieved a certificate within the 3 or 4 years after leaving school. Only 30% improved their qualifications by obtaining a lower secondary certificate by 2015. Most school-leavers with a lower secondary certificate remained stuck on the lower secondary certificate level (70%); however, 30% obtained a higher school certificate (23% achieved an intermediate certificate by 2015 and 7% even attained a university entrance qualification). By comparison, 34% of school-leavers with an intermediate certificate obtained an Abitur later on.

Table 12.3 School-leaving certificate at the end of general school and in 2015 (row percentages)

Overall, 94% of those who left school without a school-leaving certificate and 70% of those with a lower secondary certificate remained in the low-achieving group—even though they very often attended prevocational programmes, most of which offer the opportunity to catch up on school-leaving certificates (see Holtmann et al., 2021). Thus, even several years after leaving school, these young people were unable to pursue their (idealistic and realistic) educational aspirations (see above)—in stark contrast to those with an intermediate certificate who were often able to exceed their aspirations. Among the latter, 18% considered it realistic to obtain the Abitur, but as many as 34% managed to do so by 2015.

5.2 Transitions to Vocational Training

We now explore the transitions to vocational training. The German vocational training system is organized like an entry labour market—that is, school-leavers need to apply to and be selected by firms to enter regular (usually firm-based) vocational training programmes (for details, see Protsch & Solga, 2016). Thus, the question is how competitive low-achieving school-leavers are in the race for training places.

As shown above, low-achieving school-leavers want to complete vocational training after school even more than those with an intermediate secondary school-leaving certificate (77% vs 61%, see Table 12.1 above). However, they are much less successful in doing so. Figure 12.3 shows the activity status of the school-leavers in October after leaving general school. We find that 76% of those without a school-leaving certificate ended up in prevocational programmes and only 9% managed to enter regular vocational training programmes immediately after leaving school. The situation is somewhat better for those with a lower secondary certificate: 41% started a prevocational programme after leaving general school and 45% started regular vocational training. In comparison, only 10% of those with an intermediate certificate started prevocational programmes; the clear majority of them either successfully entered regular vocational training programmes or attended vocational schools to obtain a higher education entrance qualification.

Fig. 12.3

Activity status in October after leaving general school (2011 and 2012, respectively) by school-leaving certificate

Source: NEPS SC4 SUF 9.0.0, including respondents from schools for learning disabilities, weighted, own calculations

Our multivariate analyses have shown that both the application behaviour and access to training positions of low-achieving school-leavers were affected significantly by their school-leaving certificate, their attendance of a special needs school, and their final grades (for the analyses, see Holtmann et al., 2017). In contrast, competencies and personality traits did not matter: those with higher maths and reading competencies or more advantageous personality traits (such as conscientiousness and self-esteem) did not differ in terms of whether they applied for or got a training place directly after leaving school. Better social resources in terms of parental education, employment, and occupational position likewise did not improve application behaviour or training chances. This means that the heterogeneity within the group of low-achieving school-leavers remained largely undiscovered—not only in school but also in the transition to vocational training.

However, if we look only at transitions immediately in autumn after leaving school, we may miss differences in the transition patterns of the low-achieving group—for instance, some of this group might have successfully entered regular vocational training programmes after participation in prevocational programmes. We therefore conducted sequence analyses to gain information on typical transition patterns and the frequency of their occurrence. Here, we look at sequences for the period from the beginning of Grade 9 (October 2010) until September 2013—that is, 2–3 years after leaving school after Grade 9 or 10. For the period 2010–2013, we consider activities on a month-by-month basis using retrospective respondent data. We identify five activity types: attending a general school, participating in a prevocational programme, participating in a regular vocational training programme, employment, and other activities (e.g., internships, short training courses, volunteer services, unemployment, inactivity). The sixth category ‘not observed’ refers to respondents for whom information on their activities was not available until the end of the observation period in September 2013 (panel dropouts). Sequence analysis begins by using optimal matching to compare the individual sequences with each other for similarity (see Brzinsky-Fay et al., 2006; Scherer & Brüderl, 2010). Afterwards, this technique groups similar sequences into common patterns using cluster analysis (Ward’s method). We carried out the sequence analysis separately for low-achieving school-leavers from regular schools and low-achieving school-leavers from special needs schools for learning disabilities. This separation allows us to examine a potential double disadvantage experienced by low achievers from special needs schools because of their institutionalized label of having ‘learning disabilities’.

Figure 12.4 shows the results of our sequence analyses: there are five transition patterns for those from special needs schools and eight patterns for those from regular schools. Table 12.4 displays the distribution of these patterns and the average number of spells within each pattern. This number depicts how many changes respondents experienced during the observation period (i.e., changes between different types of activities as well as between the same type of activities).

Fig. 12.4

Transition patterns of low-achieving school-leavers between Grade 9 and 3 years later

Source: NEPS SC4 SUF 9.0.0, weighted, own calculations

VET vocational education and training. Status ‘other’ includes, for example, internship, voluntary service, unemployment, inactivity

Table 12.4 Transition patterns (in column percentages)

For low achievers from special needs schools for learning disabilities (upper panel in Fig. 12.4), we find two patterns with a relatively quick transition to regular vocational training programmes. In Pattern 1, they entered regular vocational training programmes after 10 years of schooling (14%); in Pattern 2, they attended a prevocational programme for 1 year after 9 years of schooling before transitioning to regular vocational training programmes (12%). These two patterns can be considered successful transitions—together, they include one quarter of the low achievers from special needs schools. The transition trajectories displayed by Patterns 3 and 4 had not (yet) ended successfully at the end of the observation period. Pattern 3 is characterized by a longer period of participation in prevocational programmes and many episodes (numbers of spells). In Pattern 4, only a small proportion of school-leavers had succeeded in starting a regular vocational training programme after 10 years of school attendance and 1 year of prevocational programme attendance by the end of the observation period (September 2013). Patterns 3 and 4 were experienced by two thirds of these low achievers (28% and 38%, respectively). In Pattern 5 (8%), we could observe many respondents for only 24 months after October 2010 before they left the NEPS. The majority of them attended prevocational programmes after Grade 9.

For low achievers from regular schools (lower panel in Fig. 12.4), Patterns 1 and 2 can be regarded as ideal-typical transitions. After attending school for 9 or 10 years, these young people directly started regular vocational training programmes. Around one third of this group experienced these transition patterns (24% and 11%, respectively). In addition, we observe a successful pattern with entry into regular vocational training following a prevocational programme episode after Grade 9 (Pattern 3), which was experienced by 9% of low achievers.

Pattern 4 (16%) is the first of the more problematic transition patterns. Here, young people attended a prevocational programme for 2 years after Grade 9, and a substantial proportion of them also started a third year in a prevocational programme. The situation is similar for Pattern 5 (13%): despite 10 years of schooling, a substantial proportion of them ended up in prevocational programmes for a second year, and only a smaller proportion succeeded in entering regular vocational training programmes afterwards. Young people with Pattern 6 (5%) did not participate in prevocational training programmes or regular vocational training after leaving school; many of them attended school for more than 10 years or started an internship. Pattern 7 is characterized by turbulence and instability after Grade 9—indicated by a higher number of spells within the 3-year observation period. This transition pattern entails shorter episodes in prevocational programmes, started (but not completed) regular vocational training programmes, and employment. About 12% of low-achieving school-leavers from regular schools experienced this pattern. Finally, Pattern 8 (9%) is again a cluster of transitions that we can observe only in part. It predominantly includes young people who left school after Grade 9; some of them started prevocational or regular vocational training programmes, yet the outcome was unclear.

There is a clear association between the transition patterns and school-leaving certificates within both the group of low achievers from special needs schools for learning disabilities and the group from regular schools (see Table 12.4): those with a lower secondary certificate experienced successful transition patterns more often than those who left school without a certificate. Among those who attended special needs schools, the successful Patterns 1 and 2 were experienced by 38% of those with a lower secondary certificate but by only 20% of those without a certificate. Among regular school-leavers, 46% with a lower secondary certificate experienced successful Patterns 1–3, compared to only 16% of those without a certificate. Moreover, there are hardly any differences in this respect between low achievers who did not attain a certificate at either special needs or regular schools (only 20% and 16%, respectively, had successful patterns), but there were clear differences between those with a lower secondary certificate by school type (38% vs 46%). The latter finding indicates that the lower secondary certificate from a special needs school is associated with lower chances of transitioning to regular vocational training.

We also investigated whether prevocational programmes can aid these young people to enter regular vocational training; and, if so, into which programmes (for the analyses, see Holtmann et al., 2021; Menze & Holtmann, 2019). A crucial question is whether programmes that improve low-achieving young people’s formal qualifications (education-focused programmes) or those that give them the opportunity to spend time in firms (firm-based programmes) are more supportive of successful transitions into regular vocational training afterwards. Our study reveals that both programme philosophies are valuable, because participation in them indeed improved low achievers’ training chances afterwards. However, 42% of participants did not acquire either higher school certificates or firm contacts during their prevocational programme.

Moreover, programmes in which young people attained a higher school certificate increased not only their training chances in general but also their chances of entering training occupations with a higher status (Holtmann et al., 2021). Thus, certificates, skills, and firm contacts acquired during prevocational programmes are recognized and valued by German employers. It is, however, important to mention that about one half of the prevocational programme participants did not enter regular vocational training programmes afterwards. As indicated by our sequence analyses, the vast majority of them entered a second prevocational programme, a low-skilled job, or unemployment. Nonetheless, even though prevocational programmes do not help everyone, our analyses based on NEPS data suggest that many low-achieving school-leavers benefit from participation in such programmes and are better off than they would have been without the programmes.

6 Conclusions

Despite educational expansion and the abolition of the separate lower secondary school type (Hauptschule) in many German states, about one fifth of recent school-leavers in Germany still have either a lower secondary certificate or none at all. Moreover, due to educational expansion, leaving school with an intermediate school leaving certificate has become the norm and is accompanied by more demanding educational requirements to obtain training places in firms. As a result, the disadvantages experienced by school-leavers who leave school with no or only a lower secondary certificate continue during their school-to-work transition period (Holtmann et al., 2017; Protsch, 2014; Protsch & Solga, 2016). In this chapter, on the one hand, we examined the agentic resources of low-achieving school-leavers for their transitions after school. On the other hand, we looked at their chances of obtaining a higher school certificate or entering regular vocational training programmes—that is, their opportunities to escape low educational achievement after leaving school.

We show that school-leavers with a lower secondary certificate or less are a disadvantaged but by no means a homogeneous group. A significant proportion of the members of this group do not differ in their cognitive and non-cognitive potential or social resources from school-leavers with an intermediate school-leaving certificate. These resources could be used to obtain higher school-leaving certificates after leaving school or to successfully enter vocational training. What we found, however, is that this potential remained largely undiscovered—with the devastating consequence that a substantial proportion of this group will remain low achievers in the long term.

While still attending school, the majority of these young people had aspired to attain a better school-leaving certificate than they ultimately achieved. Only a portion of them were able to obtain an intermediate school-leaving certificate in prevocational programmes or start a regular vocational training programme (which is educationally equivalent to attaining a better school-leaving certificate). The labour market opportunities for unsuccessful low achievers in this respect are known to be very poor in terms of access to employment (vs unemployment), occupational status, and wages (Giesecke et al., 2015; Heisig et al., 2019; Solga, 2005).

Overall, the analyses show that low-achieving school-leavers’ existing agentic resources are utilized insufficiently. The vast majority of them want to undergo training and many are also ‘ready for training’ according to the definition of the Federal Employment Agency. However, the transition to vocational training is determined more by their low school-leaving certificates than by their individual and social resources. These findings indicate that the disadvantages experienced by low-achieving young people in their transitions to training have less to do with a lack of individual or social resources than the opportunity structures they encounter—that is, the selection procedures and criteria used by companies and the institutional gatekeepers at the Federal Employment Agency. This disparity between this group’s heterogeneity in resources on the one hand and quite homogeneous school-to-work opportunities on the other was already criticized more than 10 years ago in an expert survey by the Federal Institute of Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) in which the overwhelming majority of experts expressed the view that firms should take greater account of young people’s development potential and thus also give weaker young people training opportunities more frequently (Ehrenthal et al., 2005, p. 6).

What can be done? First of all, general schools and vocational schools (especially in the context of prevocational programmes) have to do more to promote and discover the educational potential of these young people, and to convert this potential into intermediate school certificates. This would significantly reduce the proportion of young people with low educational attainment and, at the same time, improve their training opportunities. It would also be helpful if the heterogeneity of young people beyond their school-leaving certificates could be better recognized on the training market. To do this, firms would have to use procedures and recruitment processes that enable them to discover the potential of young people—despite low school-leaving certificates or poorer grades.

The NEPS data are the first representative data set for Germany that allows researchers to study school-to-work transitions of low-achieving youth in depth, including an exceptional sub-sample of respondents who attended special needs schools for learning disabilities. It contains a wealth of information on cognitive and non-cognitive skills as well as on the life course. The upcoming waves will allow researchers to explore their later employment and life outcomes, including their social integration into society, family, and civic engagement. This can provide researchers with the data they need to study the underlying mechanisms of success and failure in these respects.