Germany debates quota for immigrant students

When Sabine Schwarz* first heard about German Education Minister Karin Prien's idea via a friend, she thought it was just a bad joke. A quota limiting the number of immigrants at German schools was a "conceivable model," the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) politician had suggested, adding that Germany should check what other countries do to determine "whether that ends up being 30 or 40%".

Schwarz is the head of an elementary school in Germany's most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia. More than 80% of her 350 pupils are from immigrant families. She says Prien's proposal would be impossible to implement in reality: "We don't even have the quota of people here who would qualify as German-speaking or German," Schwarz told DW.

The Germans who live in the detached houses next to the school prefer to send their children elsewhere, says Schwarz. She finds this sad.

Federal Education Minister Karin Prien says: 'We need to get better at dealing with the issue of migration in our education system'Image: Daniel Bockwoldt/dpa/picture alliance

Almost 20 years ago, North Rhine-Westphalia abolished the obligation to send one's child to a primary school in the neighborhood. As a result, many parents avoid schools like Schwarz's — for fear that learning among a high proportion of immigrants could have a negative impact on their own children's academic success.

"What you always hear is that migration is equated with a lower level of education and that the children learn more slowly. But that's not true at all," Schwarz says. "For example, we benefited from the wave of refugees in 2015 because we received many children who were very interested in getting a good education."

Schwarz criticizes the fact that all children are lumped together. There are "traumatized children with refugee experience who can't even think about education at first, and children who are very interested in education and children who have fled poverty."

Her school's motto is: Every child is welcome, no matter where they come from. And no child is abandoned.

Mixed reception for Prien's proposals

In Germany, around 30% of the population of over 80 million have some immigrant background. But this percentage is much higher among young people, especially in urban areas. According to Berlin's statistics office, for example, children make up 17% of the population, and 55% of all children and teenagers living in the city have an immigrant background. In individual districts of the capital, such as Neukölln, that number rises to over 70%.

Stefan Düll, president of the German Teachers' Association, has welcomed the debate that Prien has initiated, although he suspects that her proposal will fail to be implemented.

He agrees with critics who say that the problem is not an immigrant background, but rather a lack of German language skills. 

"The German Teachers' Association has been pointing out for years that it makes teaching considerably more difficult if many pupils do not have sufficient knowledge of German," he told DW in a written statement. "In our view, however, there is little point in redistributing pupils just to achieve a certain quota in individual classes. This is hardly feasible from an organizational point of view and does not promote social cohesion within a school community."

Instead, Düll praised the federal and state government's program making €20 billion ($23.4 bn) available over the next few years for 4,000 schools with a particularly high number of immigrant students.

German education researcher Klaus Hurrelmann believes in the positive effect of diverse school classes: "The minister's proposal is understandable, because a well-mixed composition of school classes and learning groups according to origin clearly leads to better work."

However, he warns that implementing Prien's proposal would lead to discrimination and be counterproductive. "The resulting misunderstandings and perceived discrimination do not outweigh any potential benefits. Approaches that support schools with a very high proportion of children and young people with language problems would be better."

Students criticize stigmatization

The federal students' body (Bundesschülerkonferenz) sharply criticized Prien's idea of introducing an immigrant quota at German schools.

In a statement, it said it sends out the dangerous signal that not all children are equally welcome. The students argue that such quotas do not promote a fairer education system, but stigmatize children. An individual's ethnic origin should never become a criterion for educational opportunities. Also, schools should be places of participation, not exclusion, they wrote.

However, the students' representative body does agree with one of the minister's proposals: "We are in favor of the German aptitude tests for four-year-old children suggested by Karin Prien. However, these must be introduced across the board and be compulsory for all children in Germany, not just students with an immigrant background. If the results are inadequate, targeted, comprehensive support measures must be introduced — early, binding and effective. This is the only way to ensure that every child starts their educational career with the same opportunities."

Germany's education standard is mediocre

Performance problems among students in Germany are by no means exclusive to those with an immigrant background.

When it comes to education in Germany, one thing is certain: Teachers, parents, pupils and experts all agree that the system urgently needs to be reformed. Germany performs too poorly in many categories: In the last PISA study in 2022, Germany only came in mid-table in an international comparison. The competence of 15-year-olds in reading, mathematics and science fell to the lowest levels ever measured.

According to the International Primary School Reading Survey (IGLU) from 2023, one in four fourth-graders in Germany has difficulties reading. And 56,000 pupils left school in Germany in the same year without obtaining even a low-level degree. That's over 7%, and the trend is rising.

Kindergartens determine educational success

Many argue that issues of integration and language learning must be tackled in pre-school education. But statistics show that Germany lacks around 125,000 nursery teachers in childcare facilities across the country.

Sabine Schwarz can confirm this from her own experience: "We work very closely with the kindergartens, but we can't make up for the lack of staff there. They need trained specialists and the appropriate resources to promote language learning. Unfortunately, this is not happening at the moment, so we have a gap between kindergarten and elementary school."

The principal emphasizes: "The work in the kindergartens is key to educational success in elementary school."

*Name changed to protect anonymity.

This article was originally written in German.

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