Over the past few decades, the development and use of educational indicators, i.e. individual or composite statistics that reflect key aspects of an education system, have grown and improved in many ways. In this article, the shortcomings of indicators traditionally used for assessing school graduation and dropout are examined. So far, German school statistics only allowed for estimates of graduation and dropout rates that provide snapshots (stock indicators), but cannot reflect students’ pathways and graduation over time (flow indicators). Although cross-sectional information already allows for long-term birth cohort analyses, it is shown that longitudinal information is needed to provide a more precise picture of students’ pathways through the education system. This is exemplified with official school statistics from the state of Hesse where a data system with unique identifiers (student ID) was implemented.

Keywords
system monitoring, school system, education statistics, individual unit records, indicator, graduation, dropout, transition