Computer science is a full Abitur subject in Germany, and in several Länder it can be one of the written exams. But it is also the Abitur subject whose rules differ most from Land to Land: in one, the paper is written by a central commission and solved with a pen; in another, a teacher writes it and pupils may use a computer. This page sets out, in English, what each Land does, what that means for preparation, and works through one database task of the kind the official aids point to.
Teaching live online since 2020 · 10,000+ students worldwide · Informatik Grundkurs and Leistungskurs, in English
In short
Informatik can be taken in the Abitur as a Grundkurs or Leistungskurs in every Land, but the written exam differs: Bayern, Nordrhein-Westfalen and others set central papers solved without a computer, while Berlin and Brandenburg allow one. Modern Age Coders teaches Informatik Oberstufe and Abitur classes live online in English, in Java or Python, in a group or one to one.
Courses for the Oberstufe
Three courses for Informatik in the Oberstufe
One built for the German Abitur, one for the algorithms behind it, and one for pupils who want a competition result too.
Can you take computer science in the German Abitur?
Yes, in every Land, but how far you can take it depends on the Land and on what your school offers.
How the Abitur is built
The KMK says the Abitur exam covers four or five subjects, at least two of them at raised level (the Leistungskurs, called Leistungsfach or profilgebendes Fach in some Länder), and two of them from German, a foreign language and maths. Informatik can fill one of the other places.
The written Abitur papers are set centrally in almost all Länder, according to the KMK. For Informatik that is only partly true, as the table below shows: several Länder still let teachers write the Informatik paper.
How many pupils choose it
The Gesellschaft für Informatik puts the share of Oberstufe pupils who take Informatik in the Qualifikationsphase at about 15 percent nationally in its Informatik-Monitor 2026/27. On its Land pages the 2024/25 figures run from 7 percent in Baden-Württemberg to 43 percent in Sachsen.
Choosing it is one step; finding a course is another. In Sachsen a Leistungskurs exists only at selected Gymnasien, and in Sachsen-Anhalt the raised level is offered at two Gymnasien with a mathematics and science focus.
In most Länder the Grundkurs runs two or three hours a week and the Leistungskurs five. Nordrhein-Westfalen, for example, offers a three-hour Grundkurs and a five-hour Leistungskurs in the Qualifikationsphase; Hamburg runs the raised level as a profile subject of at least four hours, Schleswig-Holstein as one of four.
The written exam, Land by Land
How is the written Informatik Abitur set in each Land?
Three questions decide how to prepare: who writes the paper, whether a computer may be used, and how many hours the Leistungskurs has. The answers, Land by Land:
The written Informatik Abitur at raised level, 2026/27
Land
Who sets the paper
Computer in the written exam?
Leistungskurs
Baden-Württemberg
Central
No; no programming environment
5 hours
Bayern
Central
No; programming on paper
5 hours
Berlin
Teachers; one of two proposals chosen
Allowed where the task needs it
5 hours
Brandenburg
Teachers; one of two proposals chosen
Allowed where the task needs it
5 hours
Bremen
Each school; authority approves
No
5 hours
Hamburg
Central
No practical parts
At least 4 hours
Hessen
Central
No
5 hours
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Central commission
Practical parts possible in all tasks
5 hours
Niedersachsen
Central
No; no calculator either
5 hours
Nordrhein-Westfalen
Central
No
5 hours
Rheinland-Pfalz
Teachers; a commission picks two of three
Possible, not required
5 hours
Saarland
Central
No practical parts
5 hours
Sachsen
Central
Yes, in Part B
Selected Gymnasien
Sachsen-Anhalt
Each school, approved by the Landesschulamt
Possible
Two Gymnasien
Schleswig-Holstein
Teachers; supervisor selects
Possible, at most a quarter of the marks
4 hours
Thüringen
Central commission
Yes, for tools used in class
5 hours
Source: Gesellschaft für Informatik, Informatik-Monitor 2026/27, the gymnasiale Oberstufe section of each Land page, read 2 November 2026. The monitor compiles each Land's Abitur ordinances; where it reports an expert's answer rather than an ordinance, it says so. Your school's own exam information takes precedence.
Nordrhein-Westfalen in detail
NRW sends each school one set of four tasks for the Grundkurs and one for the Leistungskurs. The teacher, not the pupil, picks two of the four for the Grundkurs and three for the Leistungskurs. The permitted aids are a German spelling dictionary and a scientific calculator or CAS.
The written Informatik Abitur 2027 in NRW, Grundkurs and Leistungskurs, is on Friday 16 April 2027, inside a main exam period that runs from 13 April to 5 May 2027; NRW exams start at 9:00.
Three Länder that use a computer
In Sachsen the central paper has a compulsory Part B with practical work at an approved computer, and the aids include documentation for SQL, Python 3 and Java.
In Thüringen every optional task contains compulsory programming, pupils solve two of three, and tools used in class, such as a diagram editor or an automaton simulator, may be used if installed. Schleswig-Holstein caps computer-dependent work at a quarter of the marks.
Programming on paper
Why do most Länder test programming without a computer?
In Bayern, the Informatik-Monitor says, large parts of the written Informatik Abitur are programming tasks on paper with no work at a computer. Baden-Württemberg lets pupils answer in the language their course used but forbids a programming environment. Niedersachsen goes furthest: no calculator, no formula book, only a centrally issued information sheet.
No compiler to help
On paper, a missing semicolon or a wrong index is yours to find. Pupils who only ever test by running code meet this late, often in the mock.
Reading counts as much as writing
Many tasks give code and ask what it does, where it fails, or how to complete it. That is a reading skill, and it can be practised.
The sheet tells you the topics
Niedersachsen's information sheet summarises operations on abstract data types and the notation of database queries. Those two areas are worth practising by hand everywhere.
Is the Abitur written in English? Our sources do not say any Land offers the Informatik Abitur in English, and we do not claim it. The tasks will be in German, while the code itself uses English keywords. Our classes are in English, and every German exam term is taught next to its English meaning.
German words you will meet in an Informatik paper
In the task
In class
What to watch
Klasse, Objekt, Methode
class, object, method
Klasse also means a school year
Attribut, Konstruktor
attribute, constructor
Initialise every attribute
Liste, Stapel, Schlange
list, stack, queue
Which end you add and remove at
Binärbaum, Traversierung
binary tree, traversal
Pre-, in- or post-order
Tabelle, Primärschlüssel, Fremdschlüssel
table, primary key, foreign key
The key that links two tables
Abfrage, Verbund
query, join
The join condition
Automat, Zustand, Übergang
automaton, state, transition
The empty word
Laufzeit, Komplexität
running time, complexity
Best case or worst case?
A worked exercise
A database task: predict the rows before you run the query
Our own exercise, not a real Abitur task. Four invented pupils, three courses and a table of who takes what. The first habit we teach for any SQL question on paper is to say how many rows the answer should have before writing a single line.
Courses and enrolments in sqlite3Python
import sqlite3
db = sqlite3.connect(":memory:")
db.executescript("""
CREATE TABLE schueler (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, name TEXT);
CREATE TABLE kurs (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, titel TEXT);
CREATE TABLE belegung (schueler_id INTEGER, kurs_id INTEGER);
INSERT INTO schueler VALUES (1, 'Aylin'), (2, 'Ben'), (3, 'Chiara'), (4, 'Dev');
INSERT INTO kurs VALUES (1, 'Informatik LK'), (2, 'Mathe LK'), (3, 'Physik GK');
INSERT INTO belegung VALUES (1, 1), (1, 2), (2, 2), (3, 1), (3, 3);
""")
def rows(sql):
return db.execute(sql).fetchall()
forgot = rows("""SELECT s.name, k.titel FROM schueler s, belegung b, kurs k
WHERE b.kurs_id = k.id""")
joined = rows("""SELECT s.name, k.titel FROM schueler s, belegung b, kurs k
WHERE b.kurs_id = k.id AND b.schueler_id = s.id""")
print("Without the second condition:", len(forgot), "rows")
print("With it:", len(joined), "rows")
star = rows("""SELECT s.name, COUNT(*) FROM schueler s
LEFT JOIN belegung b ON b.schueler_id = s.id
GROUP BY s.id ORDER BY s.id""")
col = rows("""SELECT s.name, COUNT(b.kurs_id) FROM schueler s
LEFT JOIN belegung b ON b.schueler_id = s.id
GROUP BY s.id ORDER BY s.id""")
print("COUNT(*): ", star)
print("COUNT(b.kurs_id):", col)
Run with Python 3 and its built-in sqlite3 on 3 November 2026, it prints Without the second condition: 20 rows, With it: 5 rows, COUNT(*): [('Aylin', 2), ('Ben', 1), ('Chiara', 2), ('Dev', 1)] and COUNT(b.kurs_id): [('Aylin', 2), ('Ben', 1), ('Chiara', 2), ('Dev', 0)].
Trap one: the forgotten join
There are five enrolments, so a list of who takes which course must have five rows. The first query has 20. It links each enrolment to its course but never to its pupil, so every one of the four pupils is paired with every one of the five enrolments: 4 times 5.
A pupil who predicted five rows sees at once that 20 is wrong. A pupil who did not predict anything copies 20 rows into the answer.
Trap two: counting nothing as one
Dev takes no course. A LEFT JOIN keeps Dev in the result with empty course fields, so COUNT(*), which counts rows, says 1. COUNT(b.kurs_id) counts only fields that are filled, and says 0, which is the truth.
On paper there is no output to check against. The prediction is the only test you have.
Count first. How many rows should the answer have? Write the number in the margin.
One condition per link. Three tables need two join conditions. Count the tables, count the conditions.
Ask about the empty case. Is there a pupil, a course or a customer with nothing? Decide what the query should say for them.
Try it. Write the query that lists every course with the number of pupils in it, including courses nobody takes. How many rows will it return?
Beyond the exam
Can a competition count towards the Informatik Abitur?
Sometimes. Several Länder let a pupil bring in a besondere Lernleistung, a substantial piece of work outside the timetable, as part of the Abitur.
The Bundeswettbewerb Informatik
The organiser BWINF says the second round of the Bundeswettbewerb Informatik can count as a substitute for the besondere Lernleistung in the Abitur, and that whether this is possible depends on the Land and the school. The monitor names a besondere Lernleistung as an option in Informatik in Berlin, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Hessen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Niedersachsen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Sachsen and Schleswig-Holstein.
Ask your school before you plan on it.
Oral and presentation exams
A Grundkurs pupil often meets Informatik as an oral or presentation exam rather than a written one. In Bremen, for example, the Grundkurs can be examined orally but not in writing; in Hessen a Grundkurs can be the fifth subject as a presentation with a colloquium.
An oral exam rewards the same skill as paper: explaining code in words, step by step.
Preparation plan
From Einführungsphase to the written exam
Our own plan for a pupil sitting the Informatik Abitur in spring 2027 or 2028, adjusted to the Land, the language and the level.
An Informatik Abitur plan (ours)
When
Focus
Practice
Einführungsphase
Objects and classes in Java or Python
Model a small system as classes
Q1, first half
Lists, stacks, queues, recursion
Trace each operation on paper
Q1, second half
Trees, searching and sorting
Compare running times by hand
Q2, first half
Databases, SQL, automata and grammars
Predict every result before running it
Last weeks
Full papers in your Land's format
Timed, by hand, marked against the task's demands
For parents
Tell us your Land, the school's language and whether Informatik is a written subject. The plan follows from those three facts.
We report what your child can do without a computer, because that is what most written papers test.
For pupils
Every week, write one program on paper before typing it. Then compare.
Keep a list of German terms with the English beside them, and read past questions in German.
More courses
Nine more courses for Oberstufe pupils
Live and in English like everything we teach, with the same mentor from the first week.
Weekdays or weekends, flexible: choose your batch, or for a very personalised plan choose 1-on-1 at your convenience, weekend mornings or weekdays. Most Oberstufe pupils take one programming session and one paper session each week.
After school
For example 15:15 German time, 19:45 in India in winter.
Evening
For example 18:30 German time, 22:00 in India once summer time begins on 28 March 2027.
1-on-1
Saturday around noon, or extra hours before the written exam.
Your school's language
Java or Python, whichever your course uses.
Pen and paper
Code written by hand, then checked on a machine.
Your Land's format
Papers shaped like the ones your Land sets.
German task words
Every German term paired with its English meaning.
Mocks
Timed papers, marked task by task.
Size of class
A batch of fifteen to twenty, or private lessons.
Student work
What our older students build
Oberstufe pupils with us also make software of their own. A handful are below; the student labs page has the rest.
AI and ML
NutriLife
An AI nutrition coach that reads what you eat and works you toward a target.
A weather forecasting site with live conditions for any location.
by Krish
Fees
Fees for Oberstufe pupils in Germany
Fees are monthly and include eight live classes. You see them in euro here, calculated from the European Central Bank reference rate; your card is charged in US dollars and your bank makes the conversion, which can leave a small difference on the statement.
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Pupils and parents ask
Informatik Abitur in English: common questions
Can I take Informatik as an Abitur subject in Germany?
Yes. Every Land offers Informatik in the Oberstufe, as a Grundkurs and in most Länder as a Leistungskurs, but your school must run the course. About 15 percent of Oberstufe pupils take it nationally, according to the Informatik-Monitor 2026/27.
Is a computer allowed in the written Informatik Abitur?
It depends on the Land. Bayern, Baden-Württemberg, Hessen, Niedersachsen and Nordrhein-Westfalen, among others, use no computer. Berlin and Brandenburg allow one where a task needs it, Sachsen has a practical Part B at a computer, and Schleswig-Holstein caps computer work at a quarter of the marks.
When is the Informatik Abitur 2027 in NRW?
The written Informatik exam for Grundkurs and Leistungskurs in Nordrhein-Westfalen is on Friday 16 April 2027, according to the ministry's 2027 timetable. Exams start at 9:00.
Which programming language is used, Java or Python?
It depends on the school and the Land. Baden-Württemberg lets pupils answer in the language their course used, and Sachsen's exam aids include documentation for Python 3 and Java. We teach in whichever language your school uses.
Can I write the Informatik Abitur in English?
None of our sources says any Land offers it in English, so plan for German tasks. Program code uses English keywords anyway, and in class we pair every German exam term with its English meaning.
Does the Bundeswettbewerb Informatik count for the Abitur?
Sometimes. BWINF says its second round can replace the besondere Lernleistung in the Abitur, depending on the Land and the school. Ask your school early.
Are the classes in German?
No. All our classes are live and in English only, with mentors in India who match your pace and accent. That suits Informatik well, because the code is English; the German exam words are taught alongside.
When are the classes?
Weekdays or weekends, flexible: choose your batch, or for a very personalised plan choose 1-on-1 at your convenience, weekend mornings or weekdays. Our mentors' clocks in India run 4 hours 30 minutes ahead of German time in winter and 3 hours 30 minutes ahead from 28 March 2027.
Do you award a grade or certificate for the Abitur?
No. The Abitur and its marks come only from your school and Land. We teach alongside school and have no connection with any ministry, the KMK or BWINF.
How much are the classes?
You pay month by month. This page shows the amount in euro using the ECB reference rate; the charge itself is made in US dollars and converted by your card provider. Your first class costs nothing.
In the first class you read a short piece of code on screen, without running it, and say what it does. The mentor sees how you think about code, checks what your Land's exam asks for, and suggests a plan.
Classes are online and live, in English only, with mentors based in India. Message us on WhatsApp for the quickest reply.
Want a class sooner? Book a priority demo
A priority demo is a full class of about 45 to 60 minutes. After the class the mentor sends a written skill report and a personal learning roadmap on WhatsApp. If you enrol, the demo fee is adjusted against your first month's fee. Share your demo Order ID with us on WhatsApp and we take it off.
