Millions of Ukrainians have fled the bombing and fighting, most of them women and children. Many children and young people who come to Germany have to go to school at some point.
The Conference of Ministers of Education (KMK) is expected to be able to present the first figures on Ukrainian children and young people in schools in Germany in the coming week. KMK President Karin Prien (CDU) said this to journalists.
The task force set up by the KMK on the subject takes care of collecting the data. The aim is to provide information about this on a weekly basis.
The President of the German Teachers’ Association, Heinz-Peter Meidinger, expects up to 250,000 school-age children. We are then talking about “at least 15,000 additional teachers, thousands of more daycare teachers needed and ultimately a double-digit billion amount,” he told the “Passauer Neue Presse”.
Prien, who is also Schleswig-Holstein’s Minister of Education, reported from her state that 1,173 Ukrainian schoolchildren were already being taught.
Slight drop in arrival numbers
After a relatively strong increase in arrival numbers, there is currently a decline again. “There has been a certain calming down. That is also what I hear from other federal states. But this is a snapshot. That doesn’t mean at all that it can be different again next week, »said Prien. One million refugees are currently expected, 40 to 50 percent of them children and young people. About 60 additional teachers are needed for every 1000 additional students.
There is great agreement in the KMK that the children and young people should be given the opportunity to learn German through various integration classes. “We also think this is necessary because the question of when the students can return is completely open,” said Prien. Unlike in 2015 and 2016, however, they want to make additional offers based on the Ukrainian curriculum or in the Ukrainian language possible, as far as this is possible. There are only a few Ukrainian teachers. “We cannot and do not want to set up a parallel school system.”
The Ukrainian Consul General Iryna Tybinka had appealed to the Ministers of Education to pay attention to the continuity of the educational processes and to maintaining the national identity of Ukrainian children. It is about a temporary stay in Germany.
Lessons according to the Ukrainian curriculum?
Meidinger demanded that German schools have to work together with Ukraine. A mixed schedule of Ukrainian and German teaching content as well as digital forms of teaching are conceivable, he told the “Augsburger Allgemeine”. Ukrainian teachers, for example – whether they have fled to Germany or are still in their home country – could reach many students via digital lessons. They should not lose contact with the Ukrainian school system.
The Education and Training Association also called for an examination of the extent to which teaching according to the Ukrainian curriculum makes sense. “We also have to rethink our own understanding of integration and be open to new answers,” said association chairman Udo Beckmann to the editorial network Germany (RND). “This time, the goal cannot be universally valid in a quick and effective integration into the German school system.”
Source: Stern
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