Berlin - day 2
Berlin has been cold, but not rainy like Belgrade. On Thursday, the group walked over to the GMF office and had a briefing on the German political system. After the briefing, we took taxis to a local school to talk to high school students.
German School System - Children start school at the age of 6, and attend elementary school (Grundschule) up to grade 4. At that point, children are separated according to their academic ability and attend one of three different kinds of schools. The Hauptschule (grades 5-9) teaching classes at a slower pace with some vocational courses. It leads to part-time enrollment in a vocational school. The Realschule (grades 5-10) leads to part-time vocation schools and higher vocational schools. The Gymnasium (grades 5-13 leads to a degree and prepares students fro university study. Students must complete 9 grades of education. German children only attend school in the morning. There is no provision for serving lunch. There is a lot more homework and very few extracurricular activities.
The whole German educational system, including the universities, is available at no charge to the children of bona fide expatriates.
At Carl-von-Ossietzky-Oberschule, we met with students in the 13th grade and just chatted with them.
From left: Liz Decker, a student, Barbara, Gwendena, Darnella, two students, and the headmaster.
Group photo:
After the school visit, we took taxis to a Turkish restaurant for lunch in Kruezberg. Berlin has the largest Turkish population outside Turkey.
After lunch, fellows had individual appointments. I had an appoinment with Dr. Walther Haas of the Robert Koch Institute (http://www.rki.de/EN/Home/homepage__node.html). Here's a nice photo just outside the building.
The Robert Koch Institute is the central federal institution responsible for disease control and prevention. Dr. Haas is in charge of the Respiratory Infection program and a part of that is pandemic flu preparedness. He and his staff developed the state pan flu plan. According to the plan, Germany will stockpile enough antivirals for the treatment of 20% of the population on an outpatient basis. The antivirals will be kept in a central location, and states can request the drugs when WHO announces a Phase 6 pandemic situation. Germany is not stockpiling vaccines.
Germany has had birds positive for H5N1, but there have been no human cases. It's interesting that their response was much different than that in Belgrade. When ducks in Bavaria became infected, 400,000 ducks were slaughtered in the area. Serology samples were taken from the workers. There was no quarantine of the area, but there was enhanced surveillance at the local level. No people exhibited symptoms were identified.
Thursday night, Raj, Beth, and I had a "homestay" at the home of Ms. Andrea Bischoff, Deputy Secretary to the Committee on Health at the German Bundestag. Andrea was a European Fellow a couple of years ago. She invited a couple of colleagues over and we had dinner. We had an extensive discussion about global climate change. They love Arnold Schwarzenegger ("Arnie"); he's from Austria. Many people I met in Europe are impressed with the actions he's taking in California to stem climate change.
German School System - Children start school at the age of 6, and attend elementary school (Grundschule) up to grade 4. At that point, children are separated according to their academic ability and attend one of three different kinds of schools. The Hauptschule (grades 5-9) teaching classes at a slower pace with some vocational courses. It leads to part-time enrollment in a vocational school. The Realschule (grades 5-10) leads to part-time vocation schools and higher vocational schools. The Gymnasium (grades 5-13 leads to a degree and prepares students fro university study. Students must complete 9 grades of education. German children only attend school in the morning. There is no provision for serving lunch. There is a lot more homework and very few extracurricular activities.
The whole German educational system, including the universities, is available at no charge to the children of bona fide expatriates.
At Carl-von-Ossietzky-Oberschule, we met with students in the 13th grade and just chatted with them.
From left: Liz Decker, a student, Barbara, Gwendena, Darnella, two students, and the headmaster.
Group photo:
After the school visit, we took taxis to a Turkish restaurant for lunch in Kruezberg. Berlin has the largest Turkish population outside Turkey.
After lunch, fellows had individual appointments. I had an appoinment with Dr. Walther Haas of the Robert Koch Institute (http://www.rki.de/EN/Home/homepage__node.html). Here's a nice photo just outside the building.
The Robert Koch Institute is the central federal institution responsible for disease control and prevention. Dr. Haas is in charge of the Respiratory Infection program and a part of that is pandemic flu preparedness. He and his staff developed the state pan flu plan. According to the plan, Germany will stockpile enough antivirals for the treatment of 20% of the population on an outpatient basis. The antivirals will be kept in a central location, and states can request the drugs when WHO announces a Phase 6 pandemic situation. Germany is not stockpiling vaccines.
Germany has had birds positive for H5N1, but there have been no human cases. It's interesting that their response was much different than that in Belgrade. When ducks in Bavaria became infected, 400,000 ducks were slaughtered in the area. Serology samples were taken from the workers. There was no quarantine of the area, but there was enhanced surveillance at the local level. No people exhibited symptoms were identified.
Thursday night, Raj, Beth, and I had a "homestay" at the home of Ms. Andrea Bischoff, Deputy Secretary to the Committee on Health at the German Bundestag. Andrea was a European Fellow a couple of years ago. She invited a couple of colleagues over and we had dinner. We had an extensive discussion about global climate change. They love Arnold Schwarzenegger ("Arnie"); he's from Austria. Many people I met in Europe are impressed with the actions he's taking in California to stem climate change.
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