Abstract
Evidence-based education policy needs comprehensive data. Education economists of the Verein für Socialpolitik call for the implementation of a longitudinal education register in Germany to understand the complex interrelationships of education systems. The education register should cover all levels of formal education and include data on student performance in order to close a serious data gap in Germany. The statement also calls for regular access to this data for independent research. Once implemented, the education register should enable linking with other data sources, for example from the labour market, tax and health records, in order to be able to analyse the long-term effects of education. By establishing a longitudinal education register, Germany would finally catch up with established standards of other European countries, creating a resource where education register data not only exists, but are available for researchers and can be linked with other data.