German student's 'f**k you' graduation speech goes viral after 34% of her class fails final exams

The failing class

At the Robert-Stock-Gymnasium in Hagenow, 17 out of 52 students in the final-year cohort did not pass their Abitur examinations, a failure rate of 34%. A further student was not admitted to the exams at all. By comparison, the long-term average Abitur failure rate in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania sits around 4%, making the Hagenow result an extreme outlier.

A speech heard around the country

During the official graduation ceremony, student Ellenor Bockentin delivered a roughly five-minute address that has since circulated widely on social media. She described frequent teacher changes, outdated teaching materials, and a two-year stretch without proper mathematics instruction. The speech drew applause and shouts of agreement from the audience. It ended with the line directed at anyone pleased by the students' results.

Honestly: fuck you all, just all of you!

Mathematics breakdown

Half of all students scored zero points on the written mathematics exam, according to Bockentin. Only three students passed the paper at all. She noted that even pupils who had prepared for months performed poorly, and that prior grades had given no indication they were at risk of failing.

We wrote our exams to the best of our knowledge, so we would have liked to discuss the surprisingly bad results with our teachers.

Oral exams under scrutiny

Bockentin told the Nordkurier that one teacher presided over oral German exams for just three students. All three failed. She added that those three students had clashed with the teacher during their school years and that parent-teacher meetings had already taken place. Unlike the centrally set written tasks, oral exam questions are written by the subject teachers themselves.

I don't want to accuse anyone, but I think it would be good to check whether there are connections here.

Authorities react

The state education authority in Schwerin has announced it will investigate why so many students failed the Abitur at the Hagenow school. The Education and Science Workers' Union (GEW) said the result showed something was seriously wrong. State chairwoman Ulrike von Malottki placed responsibility on education minister Simone Oldenburg of the Left Party. The school initially did not respond to media requests. In the previous school year, around 350,000 class hours were cancelled across Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, which the GEW attributed to teacher shortages, overwork, and high sick leave.