The Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK)

The Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs is the oldest conference of ministers in Germany and plays a significant role as an instrument for the coordination and development of education in the country. It is a consortium of ministers responsible for education and schooling, institutes of higher education and research and cultural affairs, and in this capacity formulates the joint interests and objectives of all 16 federal states.

 

Establishment and composition

The Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany  is a consortium of the ministers or senators of the federal states responsible for education and schooling, institutes of higher education and research and cultural affairs.

The Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs was founded in 1948. On 19 and 20 February 1948, a Conference of German Ministers of Education was staged in the Hohenheim district of Stuttgart.  Before the end of the year, the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs from the three western zones of occupation agreed 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 established a Secretariat to conduct their cooperation.

Following the reunification of Germany and the re-establishment of the federal states on the territory of the former German Democratic Republic, the states of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia formally acceded to the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs on 7 December 1990. The whole of the City of Berlin, including its former East and West parts, has been represented in the Conference since reunification.

Tasks

The agenda of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs is to address “educational, higher education, research and cultural policy issues of supraregional significance with the aim of forming a joint view and intention and of providing representation for common objectives”.

Within the scope of their Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs, the federal states assume self-coordinating responsibility for the country as a whole. They ensure the necessary measure of commonality in educational, research and cultural issues of cross-state significance. One of the essential duties of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs is to use consensus and cooperation as a vehicle for securing the highest achievable level of mobility for learners, students, teachers and those involved in academic research. It is also charged with the tasks of helping create equal living conditions across Germany and of representing and promoting the joint interests of the federal states in the field of culture.

It is an important instrument for asserting the joint interests of the federal states vis-à-vis the Federal Government, the European Union, the Council of Europe, the OECD and the United Nations. The Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs also has the task of presenting and advocating the common positions of the federal states in the fields of education, research and culture.

 

Organs and committees

Plenum of the KMK

The Plenum is made up of the ministers or senators responsible for educational and cultural affairs in the 16 federal states. Each federal state has one vote in the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs.

Since July 1, 2024, independent ministerial conferences for education, science, and culture have been established within the Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs. These conferences independently address the specific topics and represent them externally.

Bildungsministerkonferenz

The central task of the Conference of Ministers of Education is to ensure maximum mobility and contribute to equal living conditions throughout Germany. Through its resolutions, it ensures the comparability of certificates and degrees, ensures mutual recognition, safeguards quality standards in schools and vocational training, and promotes the equivalence of vocational and academic education.

The Conference is chaired by a Presidium. Its meetings and decisions are prepared by a conference at the level of state secretaries and several committees.

Wissenschaftsministerkonferenz

The Conference of Ministers of Science Ministers enables joint initiatives, ensures the mobility and comparability of university degrees, serves to formulate common subject-specific and interdisciplinary higher education policy concerns at the federal level, and conducts the subject-specific policy dialogue with the key players in higher education policy in Germany.

Its meetings and decisions are prepared by a conference at the level of state secretaries and several committees.

Kulturministerkonferenz

The Conference of Ministers of Culture is one of three sub-conferences of the Standing Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs. The conference has been established to give greater visibility to the cultural policy concerns of the states at the federal level, to more closely coordinate cultural policy and funding programs of the federal and state governments, and to strengthen the social significance of culture.

Its meetings and decisions are prepared by several committees.

Secretariat

The Secretariat carries out the day-to-day work of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs. It focuses in particular on preparations for the meetings held by the Plenum, the committees and the commissions and deals with the evaluation and implementation of the results of the deliberations conducted by these bodies.

The Secretariat of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs has offices in Berlin and Bonn and is headed by a General Secretary, who also has a Permanent Representative.

Pädagogischer Austauschdienst

The Pädagogischer Austauschdienst is the sole public organisation in Germany working on behalf of the Federal States to promote international exchange and cooperation in the school sector. The PAD is a department of the Secretariat of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs. More information

Central Office for Foreign Education

The Central Office for Foreign Education is the Centre of Excellence of the federal states for the assessment and recognition of foreign qualifications in Germany. Its services are mainly used by institutes of higher education and government authorities for academic and vocational recognition procedures. Private individuals can also arrange for their higher education qualifications to be certified by the Central Office for Foreign Education, which issues notices of equivalence for certain non-academic occupations. The “anabin” database documents information on the foreign educational systems of 180 countries. More Information

More Information:

• The Education System in the Federal Republic of Germany (Comprehensive Report)
• Diagram ‘Basic Structure of the educational system in the Federal Republic of Germany’
• Statement of Comparability for Foreign Higher Education Qualifications