The Kollegstufe, Oberstufe or Sekundarstufe II is the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 equivalent of the sixth form

Sixth form

In the education systems of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and of Commonwealth West Indian countries such as Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Belize, Jamaica and Malta, the sixth form is the final two years of secondary education, where students, usually sixteen to eighteen years of age,...

 of secondary education

Secondary education

Secondary education is the stage of education following primary education. Secondary education includes the final stage of compulsory education and in many countries it is entirely compulsory. The next stage of education is usually college or university...

 in the upper stage (grades 12-13, or 11-12) of German high school

High school

High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....

s. Class groupings are dissolved and instead students choose an individual combination of courses.

The idea behind this concept is not to prepare students for university

University

A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...

, where they have to create their own timetable, as is sometimes claimed based on the mere analogy. The idea is to allow students to diversify and pick subjects of their personal preference. The Kollegstufe does not yet allow students to specialize on one or very few subjects like the university does, so a complex set of rules for the Kollegstufe ensures that important subjects (e.g. mathematics, languages) cannot be dropped, a sufficient coverage for different fields of education is achieved and the number of lessons per week covers the required minimum. If you finish the Kollegstufe successfully, which means you comply with all the regulations and pass the final exams, you get the "Abiturzeugnis", formally called "Zeugnis der Allgemeinen Hochschulreife", which entitles one to attend a German university.

The regulations for the Kollegstufe and also for the Abitur

Abitur

Abitur is a designation used in Germany, Finland and Estonia for final exams that pupils take at the end of their secondary education, usually after 12 or 13 years of schooling, see also for Germany Abitur after twelve years.The Zeugnis der Allgemeinen Hochschulreife, often referred to as...

 are different in the different "Länder"

States of Germany

Germany is made up of sixteen which are partly sovereign constituent states of the Federal Republic of Germany. Land literally translates as "country", and constitutionally speaking, they are constituent countries...

(federal states) of Germany. As educational matters are decided by the governments of the federal states, these differences can be quite big.