Standing Conference of the Ministers
of Education and Cultural Affairs
of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany

Foundation and Composition

The Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany (abbr.: Kultusministerkonferenz - KMK) unites the ministers and senators of the Länder responsible for education, higher education and research as well as cultural affairs. It is based on an agreement between the Länder.

The Standing Conference was founded in 1948, i.e. before the Federal Republic of Germany was constituted. It was the result of a "Conference of German Ministers of Education" which took place in Stuttgart on 19 and 20 February 1948 and was attended by representatives of all the zones of occupation set up after at the end of the Second World War. After the ministers from the Soviet zone had been forbidden from further attendance by their occupying power, the ministers of education and cultural affairs of the three western zones of occupation agreed in the same year that their conference should become a permanent institution. They constituted themselves as the "Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany" and set up a permanent secretariat for their co-operation.

Following the restoration of Germany's unity as a state on 3 October 1990 and the reestablishment of the Länder in the territory of the former GDR, the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia joined the Standing Conference on 7 December 1990. Berlin in its entirety also joined the Standing Conference once the western and eastern sectors of the city had been united.