I have little familiarity with the US, beyond the perception of a number of specialised world leaders among their leading unis (plus a vast number of also-rans).  My impression of the German situation is that the older (craft-based) social structures are still in place, leading to a socially-acceptable stratification of society (where a mechanic is as highly regarded in his own field, as a legal professional is in his), this being absent in our British-based outlook, where everybody demands a degree, otherwise he is "a nothing".
Certainly the foundation phase education is presently woefully poor in SA.  On another website, there was recently a discussion around a particular calculator function that gave a wrong answer to the problem of "1+2+3=?" (a response-speed problem led to the device not registering the second "+" sign, and thus giving an answer of "24").  The entire question of why anyone would use a calculator for such a problem was almost entirely glossed over!