Education in North Rhine-Westphalia

Education and research in North Rhine -Westphalia are the basis for the North Rhine-Westphalian economy and other sectors of society. The economically profitable exploitation of natural resources plays in the North Rhine -Westphalian economy at least since the demise of the coal industry in the country not so important anymore, so education, research and development forms the basis of the meanwhile mostly of services embossed knowledge economy. The North Rhine- Westphalia is to make its education policy motivated by the education authority of the countries in the responsibility. The country has a dense network of general education schools, vocational schools, colleges and other educational and research institutions. In addition, other schools and institutions are privately funded or sponsored by the federal government. The companies in North Rhine -Westphalia wear with their research and development departments significantly to value creation in the country.

General schools

In North Rhine -Westphalia three to five years of primary school are provided ( up to class 4) for all students. This is followed by a visit to a primary school, a secondary school, a secondary school or a comprehensive school. The legal bases are included in the unified school law ( SchulG NRW) from 15 February 2005. After the change of government ( May 2005), the Comprehensive School Law Amendment Act of 27 June 2006 it was decided which provides for a mandatory recommendation for the transition to one of the secondary schools by the primary school teacher. Following the example of other states were also centralized final examinations, grammar and comprehensive schools, so the Central High School, is introduced. The regular school time was shortened at high schools in twelve years. In all the schools top notes were reintroduced, but that were abolished in 2010.

According to the State Office issued for data processing and statistics North Rhine -Westphalia Education reports the share of private, state- approved educational institutions was in the school year 2005/2006 in the general education 5.2 percent. 2006/2007, the proportion increased to 5.3 percent.

See also: High School in North Rhine -Westphalia

Universities

As late as the 1950s there were in North Rhine-Westphalia, very few institutions or similar educational institutions. Traditional universities passed with the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster, the University of Cologne, the Rheinische Friedrich- Wilhelms University in Bonn, which contested the 1818 successor to the old university in Duisburg, or the Rheinisch -Westfälische Technische Hochschule in Aachen. In October 2007, the RWTH Aachen was chosen by a panel of representatives from politics and science as "elite" university.

In 1907, a medical academy was established in Dusseldorf, which was converted by the state government in a university in 1965, today known as the Heinrich Heine University in Dusseldorf. In the state capital is also located the Dusseldorf Art Academy, which was primarily known Joseph Beuys, Jörg Immendorff and Markus Liipertz.

In many regions of the country, particularly in the Ruhr area, however, were hardly higher educational institutions. This changed only with the educational expansion of the 1960s and early 1970s. Alone in the Ruhr area there now are six universities and nine colleges. Numerous research institutes and technology centers of the Ruhr region to Europe's densest education and research landscape. Here, the engineering and the natural sciences are particularly well represented. In the third-party funding North Rhine-Westphalia is due to the diverse higher education landscape in Germany at No. 1 The first University of the Ruhr, Ruhr- University Bochum, was founded in 1962. Among the universities in the Ruhr Area include the University of Duisburg -Essen, which emerged from a fusion of the Gerhard- Mercator - University of Duisburg and the University - University of Essen, Dortmund University of Technology, the private University of Witten / Herdecke, the University of Hagen and the Folkwang Hochschule in the Ruhr region with a focus on music, the performing arts and (since 2008) design. In Westphalia there were more university start-ups: the University of Bielefeld, Paderborn University, the University of Siegen. In the Rhineland, the University of Wuppertal was founded.

The universities of Bochum, Duisburg- Essen, Hagen, Cologne and Münster are the largest universities in the country and are measured at the specified by the Federal Statistical Office number of ordinary students in the winter semester 2006/2007, the 10 largest universities in Germany. In the winter semester 2005/2006 a total of about 470,000 students were enrolled. Overall, the country has included the colleges 26 public universities, 7 state of art and music colleges, 22 recognized private universities and 4 colleges that are not of the service and subject to supervision of the country.

See also: List of all universities in North Rhine -Westphalia

Research and Development

Numerous organizations and scientific institutions have their headquarters in North Rhine -Westphalia, particularly in the City of Bonn, the former seat of government. In many areas of science, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the German Research Foundation, the German Society for Aeronautics and Astronautics, the German Centre for Aerospace, the German Academic Exchange Service, the German Research Foundation, the Helmholtz Association, the involved Max Planck Society, the Donors' Association for German Science and study Foundation of the German people. The Max Planck Society conducts various institutes and the Fraunhofer Society is represented with several facilities. Forschungszentrum Jülich is one of the largest research institutions in Europe. The NRW Graduate Schools are funded by the state and are the top research facilities in the existing universities.

Because of the many strong research landscape is North Rhine-Westphalia in the number of total third-party funds in a nationwide comparison of countries to square 1