Children with a migration background need more help from the school

Education Children with a migration background need more help from school

Many students with a migrant background receive insufficient support at school.

Berlin They all go to kindergarten – you think. However, only 84 percent of migrant children between the ages of three and six go to kindergarten – compared to 98 percent of Germans without a migration background. The difference is even greater among the little ones under three: here only one in five attends a day care center – compared to 40 percent among non-migrants.

Their deficits are therefore significantly greater, especially in the German language – and correspondingly less successful in their further education. This is shown by a study by the employers’ institute of the German economy (IW) on migrants. This put Almost 40 percent of children up to the age of five today – and the trend is rising.

Because the differences are so great and are increasing over the course of their education, the authors Christina Anger and Wido Geis-Thönen also demand more money, especially for those kindergartens and schools that look after a large number of migrants, for more staff. In the medium term, this will lead to more qualified young people – to the benefit of the economy and social security funds.

The school budgets must be based on a social index like the one already in existence in Hamburg. In order to attract more good teachers and supervisors to focus schools and day care centers, they recommend "premium payments and reductions in teaching duties". To do this, politics would also have to forego the abolition of all parental contributions in kindergartens – the money was better used elsewhere.

At the same time, access to daycare centers should also be easier, the IW researchers demand: In some cities in particular, the application for a daycare process is so complicated that parents with poor knowledge of German are put off.

Good daycare law: coalition groups agree on billions for higher quality of daycare

According to various studies, migrant children are well integrated into primary schools, and their enjoyment of school attendance is sometimes above average. However, because they start with language difficulties and their parents are poorly trained on average and can therefore help less, they are almost four years behind in fourth grade. In Hamburg, Bremen and Berlin, their backlog is much larger – also because there are a particularly large number of migrants and their children often study in certain schools.

Internationally, Germany is far behind: most countries manage much better to bring their migrant children up to the level of the other students. The motivation of parents is not in Germany either: on average, they even strive for higher educational goals for their children than non-migrants.

In addition to far more intensive reading support in primary school, this is also necessary in secondary schools, according to the IW. The renowned primary school researcher Wilfried Bos also warned that the 5th and 6th grades had to be made up for what the primary school missed – after all, one in five fourth graders cannot right read. But that does not happen because the teachers in secondary school are not trained for it, said Bos. So the little illiterate – whether migrant or not – would be "passed on".

During the following years, migrant children continue to fall behind – also because special support is only available in a small number of schools. At the end of school, the average school leaving qualification is much worse: Even four percent of those born in Germany do not graduate, and the proportion is not even half as large for non-migrants. 20 percent have a secondary school leaving certificate, 28 percent have a secondary school leaving certificate and 48 percent have a high school diploma – 13, 29 and 56 percent for non-migrants.

Comment: At the daycare center-law shows the whole federalism-schizophrenia

At first glance, it therefore seems reasonable to assume that migrants tend to end up in an apprenticeship – but that is not the case. Of the 18-20 year olds, only a good 30 percent did vocational training in 2016 – but 40 percent of non-migrants. According to the IW, this is partly due to poorer school-leaving qualifications, but also due to the fact that a large proportion of those who graduate from high school study.

In addition, the chances seem to be different: of the applicants registered with the Federal Employment Agency, only 29 percent made the leap into training in 2016 – compared to 47 percent of non-migrants.

Education Children with a migration background need more help from school

RELATED ITEMS