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Children from the Ukraine in a German classroom
Photo:
Frank Rumpenhorst / dpa
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, tens of thousands of Ukrainian children and young people have fled to Germany in their homeland and arrived in schools in this country.
The Ministers of Education speak of an "extraordinary challenge".
So far, there is little evidence of how schools master this.
A Forsa survey of around one thousand teachers commissioned by the Robert Bosch Foundation, the »German School Barometer Special«, highlights the situation – and indicates that some things are going differently than initially propagated by politicians.
Initially, the declared goal of most Ministers of Education was for the pupils to learn primarily in so-called welcome or preparatory classes, i.e. in separate groups specially set up for newly immigrated children.
According to the survey, which was presented this Tuesday, school practice looks different in many places.
According to this, almost half of Ukrainian children and young people learn exclusively in regular classes.
There are big differences between the types of schools.
Every second teacher surveyed reports that Ukrainian children and young people have already been admitted to their school.
According to which model these students should learn is controversial among experts.
The Standing Academic Commission of the Conference of Ministers of Education, a body with 16 experts, recommended in March: Ukrainian elementary school students and the younger years of secondary schools should be admitted to regular classes, while older students should be admitted to welcome classes;
In addition to the lessons, there should also be additional offers in the Ukrainian language.
Virtually almost no courses offered in Ukrainian
The fact that, according to the survey, the majority of Ukrainian primary school children now sit in the classroom with other children from Germany fits in with the recommendations of the commission – the still quite high proportion of older schoolchildren in regular classes, on the other hand, tends not to.
In addition, there are apparently hardly any courses offered in the Ukrainian language.
Only one percent of the schools with Ukrainian children offered Ukrainian-language face-to-face or online classes.
7 percent had Ukrainian teachers.
Not even every tenth teacher surveyed with Ukrainian children or young people at their own school reported that they had Ukrainian-speaking translators at their school.
80 percent said there were neither translators nor Ukrainian teachers.
Udo Beckmann, chairman of the Education and Training Association (VBE), therefore criticizes a “discrepancy between political wishful thinking and the real situation in schools”.
Especially for those students from Ukraine who are about to take their final exams, this represents a particular hurdle in their educational path.
While the principle of welcome classes has basically proven its worth from the point of view of many education experts, others are skeptical.
These classes are "usually not set up for pedagogical reasons, but because of a lack of resources, because there are not enough regular school places and not enough teachers," says sociologist Juliane Karakayali in an interview with the German school portal.
»Often, parallel systems are established that usually go hand in hand with dubious educational quality because nobody really controls them.«
However, depending on the local conditions, teaching in a regular class is not necessarily a guarantee of success.
In some places, newly immigrated children could simply be placed in the classroom without receiving specific support;
possibly also due to scarce resources.
For VBE chairman Beckmann, the fact that the number of refugee primary school children in regular classes is 60 percent above the average is "further evidence that the shortage of teachers is particularly dramatic here and that the room capacities are largely exhausted".
In addition, according to the Forsa survey, not even every second German school has a concept for educating children and young people with little or no knowledge of German.
According to the information, the regional differences are large.
While teachers in North Rhine-Westphalia and the northern federal states state that they have such a concept more often than average, this is less the case in Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and above all in the eastern German federal states.
According to the teachers surveyed, lessons in the language of origin are apparently not even offered in a quarter of the schools.
The Forsa survey was conducted from early to mid-April.
At that time, Germany's schools had taken in around 60,000 children and young people from Ukraine.
There are now more than 90,000.
Accordingly, the situation could have changed again in various respects in the meantime, especially since many schools are constantly trying to increase their staff;
also from the ranks of the fleeing Ukrainians.
more on the subject
How German schools take in Ukrainian children: From the war zone to the welcome classBy Silke Fokken
Podcast about Ukrainian school children: war and compulsory education A podcast by Marius Mestermann
Debate on education for refugees: Should Ukrainian children be integrated into the German school system? By Swantje Unterberg
Shortage of teachers in schools: The flight of the frustratedBy Silke Fokken
The Education and Science Union (GEW) calls for quick and unbureaucratic, but well-coordinated and sustainable support, especially with regard to staff, rooms and material resources.
"The specialists are highly motivated to master this challenge, but after more than two years of the corona pandemic, many are also at the limit, sometimes even beyond," said Anja Bensinger-Stolze, GEW board member for schools.
Above all, the schools need teachers for German as a second or foreign language, but also social workers, school psychologists, specialists for dealing with trauma and interpreters.
"These specialists have been missing for many years," said Bensinger-Stolze.
Many schools and professionals have experience with refugee students.
But both the difficult planning of everyday school life due to the corona pandemic and the dramatic lack of educational staff are now endangering educational efforts in Germany as a whole.
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