Marking 15 Years Since Teaching Degrees Returned to Bonn Marking 15 Years Since Teaching Degrees Returned to Bonn

The anniversary comes at a time when the latest PISA results have once again ramped up the pressure on the German education system to take action. With its research-oriented teacher education, the way it integrates theory closely with classroom teaching, and its own educational research, the BZL is helping to make teaching more effective, attainment assessments fairer and schools fitter for the future.
 
Teacher education as part of the response to a poor PISA showing
 
The PISA 2025 results published in early September gave Germany its lowest scores in science, reading and mathematics since the survey began in 2000. Among 15-year-olds, about a third are failing to reach the basic competency standard in mathematics, not quite a third in literacy and just over a quarter in science. At the same time, the link between social background and academic success remains especially strong in Germany.
 
“Germany’s new low in the PISA rankings shows that, far from being a marginal issue, good teacher education is vital for the future,” says Professor Florian Radvan, Chairperson of the BZL’s Executive Committee. “Teachers need exceptional training in their subject, diagnostic skills and the ability to make effective use of scientific findings in their lessons. This is precisely why we in Bonn combine specialist expertise with subject didactics, educational sciences and intensive hands-on experience.”
 
The BZL handles the academic phase of teacher education at the University of Bonn, coordinating degree programs, placements and examinations, advising current and prospective students and encouraging dialogue between the subjects involved. The budding teachers are geared up for working in the classroom from an early stage, gaining initial supervised experience in schools even while they are still bachelor’s students. This is followed during their master’s degree program in Education by a whole practical semester, which is prepared and supported by the subject didactics and educational sciences teams.
 
Better feedback and fairer assessments
 
Work by Professor Nicolas Hübner, who is Professor for School Education at the BZL and specializes in education and upbringing, demonstrates how research can make a tangible contribution to a more evidence-based approach to the school day. His school-based experiment “Lernförderliche Leistungsrückmeldungen” (“Attainment Feedback Boosting Learning”) investigated what happens when primary schools replace numbered grades with alternative ways of assessing attainment, such as portfolios, learning diaries and competency matrices. Hübner’s team, which also includes researchers from the Institut für Bildungsanalysen Baden-Württemberg and the University of Education Freiburg, studied not only trends in the children’s attainment but also their motivation, enjoyment of learning, performance anxiety and wellbeing in their school setting. Findings published recently in the journal “Educational Psychology Review” show that children at primary schools that have abolished grades and introduced other ways of gauging attainment are somewhat more interested in mathematics at the end of their third year. In all the other areas investigated, meanwhile, they do not differ significantly from their peers at schools that award traditional grades.
In another project, which goes by the name of “INFLATE” and is being funded by the German Research Foundation, Hübner and his colleagues—including staff from the DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education and HMU Health and Medical University in Potsdam—are investigating grade inflation, a phenomenon that has been much-discussed but hardly ever scrutinized systematically. The researchers are interested in how the grades awarded in primary schools and at secondary school level I have changed over time relative to the competencies actually measured, including transition recommendations, educational aspirations and grade comparability.
Says Hübner: “PISA has revealed how the German school system compares internationally. However, the main improvements will come in the classroom, e.g. with a form of assessment that doesn’t just rank schoolchildren but shows them what progress they’ve made, where they currently stand and what they need to do to achieve their goals. For this to happen, teachers need time, nuanced diagnostic tools, and support structures that do what they are supposed to.”
 
Putting democracy and education front and center
 
The anniversary event on Wednesday, September 30, 2026, is entitled “Demokratie und Bildung” (“Democracy and Education”). Following some introductory words from Florian Radvan and BZL Director Dr. Robert Steegers and a welcoming speech from the Rectorate, the political scientist Dr. Julia Reuschenbach from the University of Hamburg will give the keynote address. There will then be a round of discussions involving representatives from subject didactics, in-school training, the educational sciences and education for democracy. The event starts at 5 pm in Lecture Hall I in the University Main Building and will be followed by a reception in the main auditorium.
The next day, October 1, will feature a workshop-based conference for students on their practical semester. Thus the BZL is linking its anniversary celebrations directly with teaching practice: The students will tackle current challenges from the classroom, share experiences from their schools and apply scientific findings to their own professional approaches.
 
A long tradition of teaching degrees in Bonn
 
The University of Bonn had been training teachers for nearly 200 years before teaching degrees were discontinued in 2002 by order of the state government. Then, almost 10 years later, the decision was reversed, and the University welcomed its first students to the newly established BZL in winter semester 2011/12. Nowadays, the University trains teachers for Gymnasien, Gesamtschulen and Berufskollegs. With its expertise in agricultural science and in nutrition science and home economics, the opportunities that it offers to study for teaching degrees for Berufskollegs cannot be found anywhere else in North Rhine-Westphalia.
 
The center was renamed from “Bonner Zentrum für Lehrerbildung” to “Bonner Zentrum für Lehrer*innenbildung” in February 2026. Adding the “gender star” underlines what the BZL has seen as self-evident for many years, namely that it is there for anyone who wants to learn to teach.