The Federal Statistical Office Destatis said on Wednesday that the school year 2022-23 saw an increase in enrolled pupils in German schools. 

According to the preliminary figures, this is 1.9% more than the number of students enrolled the previous year. 

The rise is the first of its kind since the school year of 2016-17. 

What are the figures for this school year?

Around 11.1 million students were enrolled in general and vocational schools in total, also including schools that train pupils for jobs in the healthcare sector.

At general education schools, the number of students rose by 2.9% to 8.7 million within. However, vocational schools saw a drop in enrolled students by 1.8% to 2.3 million.

Destatis cited demographics and immigration as the likely reasons for the increase. The number of those in the relevant age groups, between 5 and 20 years old, was 0.8% higher than the year before. 

Migration likely one of causes

Nearly 14% of students this school year have a foreign passport, Destatis said. Compared with the previous school year, this marks an increase of 18%. 

"The high increase is probably primarily due to the immigrant students with Ukrainian citizenship as a result of the Russian war of aggression," Destatis said. 

The office noted, however, that this could not yet be proven with the available preliminary data. Destatis said the final results of German school statistics would record the exact number of pupils with Ukrainian passports. 

Germany has famously had negative domestic population growth for decades, with migration contributing either to keeping population figures stable or causing them to increase, depending on the numbers in a given year.

fb/msh (dpa, AFP) 

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