ABSTRACT
In the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), private educational institutions are engaged in providing a wide range of educational services, from kindergartens to schools (with universities also included recently) to further education. The following chapter focuses upon the private school system. The execution of educational tasks in this sector by private bodies has received prominent sanction by its official regulation in Article 7 of the Federal Constitution (for further details, see pp. 168-172). This article guarantees the statutory right to establish and run private schools parallel and with equal rights to state schools, and thus represents a clear rejection on the part of the legislators of a state monopoly on schools, with the aim of creating the basis for the diversity and freedom of choice in the educational system appropriate to a liberal democracy and a pluralist society. The private schools are expected, as the private school legislature of some Länder (states) specifically stipulates, to enrich the state school system by providing special forms of instruction and education or to complement it by supplying forms and categories of school which are not part of the standard state repertoire (Vogel, 1984: 6).
