g appropriate to their needs is enshrined in the Länder constitutions and more detailed provisions are set out in the educational legislation of the Länder.
The Ministries of Education, Cultural Affairs and Science in the Länder are the highest authorities responsible for education, science and culture. Their scope of responsibilities generally includes schools, higher education, libraries, adult education, arts and culture in general, relations between the state and religious or ideological communities, local history and the preservation of monuments and sites and in some Länder also sport and youth welfare.
The Ministries of Education, Cultural Affairs and Science develop policy guidelines in the fields of education, science and the arts, adopt legal provisions and administrative regulations, co-operate with the highest authorities at national and Land level and supervise the work of authorities under their purview and of subordinated bodies, institutions and foundations. to assist the ministries in their work the Länder have established their own research institutes for school education, higher and continuous education.
The Ministries of Education and Cultural Affairs are headed by a Minister (in Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg: Senator) who is answerable to parliament. The Minister is usually represented by a State Secretary (Staatssekretär/-sekretärin) or Director-General. In ten of sixteen Länder separate Ministries responsible for science and research have been established.
The instrument for co-operation among the Land governments in education is the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany (KMK). The KMK is based on an agreement between the Länder and deals with cultural policy matters of supra-regional importance, with the aim of forming a common viewpoint and a common will as well as representing common interests. Resolutions of the KMK have the status of recommendations. It is the political commitment of the competent Ministers to transform recommendations into law, however - until they are enacted as binding legislation by the parliaments in the 16 Länder.
One thing is similar in all the Länder: the costs of the school system are shared. The costs for school buildings, equipment and also for secretarial and domestic support are tasks of the maintaining bodies Schulträger, e.g: the community, the district or the Land. The funding of teaching staff is the task of the individual Land
Administration of School and Special Educational Needs
School administration is in some Länder structured in a three-tier system, in which the Ministries of Education and Cultural Affairs form the upper tier, the schools' offices of the regional authorities or independently existing upper-level schools' offices form the middle tier, and the schools' offices of the local authorities form the lower tier. In some Länder and in the city-states school administration is based on a two-tier system arrangement. In big Länder as Baden Wuertemberg or North-Rhine Westphalia the school administration is structured in a four-tier system.
The school system in Germany is organised both horizontally and vertically. After 4 years of primary schooling, the system divides into 4 types of schools: 5 years of general secondary schooling; 6 years of intermediate schooling; 9 years of grammar schooling or 9 years of comprehensive schooling which makes up the three other school types and leads to university level education. Besides this, there are the schools for special education. After 9 or 10 years of schooling, vocational training starts. (Please refer to the diagram below). That pattern is the framework for all 16 Länder. In detail it is different for example in Berlin and Brandenburg the primary school lasts for 6 years, in Bavaria there are regularly no comprehensive schools. The cultural sovereignty the Länder leads to these differences. In addition, because of the German unification in 1990, two different school systems had to be unified.
Gymnasien, comprehensive schools, v