Students in Bavaria do best in their Abitur? None! A federal state in the east is the undisputed leader. What it is and how the other federal states fared in comparison. The ranking at a glance.
This year again, tens of thousands of students in Germany completed their Abitur. This year for the first time without Corona relief for the exam tasks. As was the case last year, the students in Thuringia achieved the best grades.
Here is a large overview of the federal states.
This is how high school graduates performed in the federal states
- Baden-Württemberg
- Bayern
- Berlin
- Brandenburg
- Bremen
- Hamburg
- Hesse
- Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
- Lower Saxony
- North Rhine-Westphalia
- Rheinland-Pfalz
- Saarland
- Saxony-Anhalt
- Saxony
- Schleswig-Holstein
- Thuringia
Baden-Wurttemberg
The final figures will not be available until next year.
Bayern
With a national average grade of 2.25, Bavaria’s high school graduates performed worse this year than in previous years. Last year the average was 2.24, and in the Corona years it was even better at 2.15 (2022) and 2.14 (2021). In 2020 the average was also 2.25.
Education Minister Anna Stolz (Free Voters) was “impressed by the convincing achievements” of the Bavarian high school graduates: “Congratulations to all graduates on this great result. With the general university entrance qualification you are well prepared – you can continue your path with self-confidence and confidence, whether during your studies or in vocational training. The very best for your future!”
Around 34,000 high school graduates took part in the high school exams in Bavaria this year. It was the last year to complete the G8 Abitur. The first G8 graduates were in the 2011 Abitur class – since then there have been almost 500,000 students in Bavaria. If someone has not passed the Abitur this year, he or she can repeat it next year according to G8 conditions.
Berlin
13,996 of 14,915 Berlin students passed their Abitur this year. This corresponds to a rate of 93.8 percent; in 2023 it was slightly higher at 96.4 percent. 461 high school graduates achieved the top grade of 1.0. The average rate this year was 2.3, the average total score was 601.
“These top grades are evidence of the high level of commitment and hard work of both our learners and our teachers,” praised Katharina Günther-Wünsch, Senator for Education, Youth and Family in the capital.
Brandenburg
More high school graduates in Brandenburg can look forward to receiving top grades on their diploma. 352 students achieved a grade of 1.0 – last school year there were 288, as the Ministry of Education announced. Accordingly, the proportion of high school graduates with the top grade was around 3.8 percent; in the previous year, around 3.1 percent had a 1.0 on their certificate.
Education Minister Steffen Freiberg (SPD) congratulated the high school graduates with an appeal: “I hope that many of you stay here. Brandenburg is a good place to live and work. Keep your school days in good memory.”
Bremen
According to the latest preliminary figures, exactly 726 students in Bremen passed their Abitur this year with an average grade of 1.9. 104 students completed their Abitur with 1.0, as a spokeswoman for the Senator for Children and Education told the Editorial Network Germany (RND).
Hamburg
The first Abitur year without any special Corona relief did slightly worse than the years during the pandemic, but better than the last before the pandemic. According to preliminary figures, a total of 9,216 high school graduates achieved an average grade of 2.36, as the school authorities announced. According to the information, during the Abitur years with Corona relief, the average grade was slightly better between 2.27 and 2.31, and in the last pre-Corona year of 2019 it was 2.42.
Hesse
2.27 – that is the average grade of Hessian high school graduates, which is only slightly lower than in 2023 (2.25). Of 23,345 students, 22,056 passed this year’s exams. This corresponds to a rate of 94.5 percent. For comparison: in 2023 the rate was only slightly higher at 95.5 percent. At that time, 22,628 students took the Abitur and 21,616 passed it.
974 of this year’s high school graduates left their schools with the dream final grade of 1.0; that corresponds to 4.4 percent of the students.
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
The final figures will not be published until the end of October.
Lower Saxony
In Lower Saxony, 28,795 students passed their Abitur this year. The average grade was 2.45, as the Ministry of Culture in Hanover announced. The average was only slightly worse than the previous year with 2.43 and still better than in the pre-Corona year 2019 with 2.56.
Every 50th examinee achieved a high school diploma with a grade of 1.0 – that’s 605 students. Last year there were almost as many, 603. As was the case a year ago, almost one in three high school graduates (29 percent) managed to graduate with a grade point average of 2.0 or better. However, around 1,800 students failed the exams. At 6 percent, that was slightly more than last time.
The Abitur this year was the first without special Corona regulations.
North Rhine-Westphalia
After the delayed start last year, the Abitur this year “went smoothly,” according to the North Rhine-Westphalia Ministry of Education. The provisionally determined average grade of 2.39 is the long-term average, the ministry said at the request of the German Press Agency in Düsseldorf. A detailed results report will be published in the fall.
Last year, the start of the Abitur had to be postponed by two days for the first time in the state’s history due to technical glitches when downloading the tasks.
This year, around 73,000 students in North Rhine-Westphalia took their Abitur exams in a total of 40 subjects at 986 public and private high schools, comprehensive schools, further education colleges and Waldorf schools.
Around 8,000 students have completed their Abi examinations in 27 courses at the 233 vocational high schools across the country. Here too, the preliminary average grade of 2.48 is the long-term average, as the ministry reported.
Award for party school toilet in Unna
These school toilets at the Hellweg-Realschule in Unna, North Rhine-Westphalia are a real highlight.
Rheinland-Pfalz
The final figures for Rhineland-Palatinate are not yet available.
Saarland
The average grade in the Abitur this year in Saarland is 2.35. 3,023 students passed their Abitur in the past school year and 89 of them achieved a Abitur average of 1.0, as the Ministry of Education in Saarbrücken announced. Around 93 percent of the examinees passed the Abitur, 223 examinees failed. Last year the average was 2.34.
In total, almost 8,000 young people in Saarland completed school. In addition to the high school graduates, around 3,100 students completed an intermediate level of education and 1,863 completed a secondary school level.
Saxony-Anhalt
This year, high school graduates in Saxony-Anhalt completed their exams at general schools with a grade average of 2.27. As the Ministry of Education announced on Monday, the average Abitur exam is roughly the same as in previous years.
According to the information, 153 students achieved a result of 1.0 this year. Almost one in three students achieved an A before the decimal point in their final grade.
Saxony
The high school graduates in Saxony achieved similar results this school year as in previous years. As the Ministry of Culture announced, the average grade was 2.18. Last year it was 2.16; In 2015 the value was 2.29.
Of the 10,349 students who took the Abitur, 96.5 percent or 9,978 passed the school leaving examination. According to the ministry, this value is also at the previous year’s level (96.6 percent). 348 high school graduates achieved the top average of 1.0.
In neighboring federal states, high school graduates achieved similar results. In Saxony-Anhalt, the Abi average this year was 2.27; in Thuringia it was 2.13, according to the Ministry of Education.
Schleswig-Holstein
This year, 8,792 high school graduates from Schleswig-Holstein passed their high school diploma at public high schools and community schools with a senior level. That was 183 more students than in 2023. The average Abitur grades were 2.4 at high schools and 2.62 at community schools, and are similar to the previous year’s values (2.39 at high schools, 2.57 at community schools). The top grade of 1.0 was achieved 143 times at high schools and 16 times at community schools.
1,627 students took their Abitur at the vocational high schools. The average grade was 2.58 and the top grade was awarded three times. 282 students earned their Abitur at the vocational high schools. Their grade point average was 2.66, three of them were awarded the top grade.
Thuringia
The Abi average in Thuringia this year is 2.13. This means that the high school graduates performed similarly well as last year. This emerges from preliminary statistics from the Ministry of Education, which were published on Friday. In 2023 the average Abitur in the Free State was 2.09 and in 2022 it was 2.04.
According to the information, 6,149 students took the Abitur exams this year, compared to 6,269 last year. Around 96 percent passed the exam this year. 217 students even achieved a high school diploma average of 1.0.
The special performance assessment test, which in Thuringia must be completed in the tenth grade of high school in order to have a secondary school certificate, was passed by 5,620 students and 521 failed. With 90.0 percent passing exams, the rate here was lower than last year, when 96.8 percent passed this final exam.