Content and Objectives

In Germany, children's educational success still depends heavily on their social background. The aim of the Startchancen programme is to decouple educational success and socio-economic background in order to promote the educational potential of disadvantaged children more strongly and increase equal opportunities. The target is to halve the number of pupils who fail to meet the minimum standards in maths and German at the Startchancen schools by the end of the programme. The focus is therefore on strengthening basic skills such as reading, writing and arithmetic, which are regarded as basic requirements for further education and careers. In addition, pupils are to be strengthened in their social-emotional skills, equipping them for participation in democratic life.

The Startchancen programme was introduced on 1 August 2024 and will run for ten years. The federal and state governments are each investing one billion euros per year, totalling 20 billion euros. The funds are distributed to around 4,000 schools in a targeted manner, with the selection of schools within the federal states following a social index based on key criteria such as poverty and the proportion of migrants. In total, around one million socially disadvantaged pupils are supported in this way. As educational inequalities can be counteracted most efficiently as early as possible in the educational career, 60 per cent of the schools supported are primary schools.

The Startchancen programme comprises three programme pillars:

• The first pillar involves investing in a modern and conducive learning environment.
• The second pillar comprises the "opportunity budgets", which are available to schools for needs-based solutions in school and teaching development.
• The third pillar serves to strengthen multi-professional teams and enables schools, for example, to hire additional such as youth and community workers, specialist educators, and school social workers.

The Startchancen schools are accompanied and supported in the implementation of the programme by the CHANCEN network under the direction of Prof. Dr. Kai Maaz (DIPF).

The Startchancen programme is being evaluated on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) by a consortium led by the infas Institute for Applied Social Sciences. Within the evaluation consortium, BiB is particularly involved in the impact analysis and the evaluation of the achievement of the Startchancen programme's objectives.