A good 40,000 Ukrainian children and young people in German schools are to be integrated as quickly as possible.

Setting up a parallel system with Ukrainian lessons is illusory.

The Ministers of Education also agree on this.

"There is a consensus between the countries that learning the German language and integration into the German school system have priority and that the online lessons on the Ukrainian side, i.e. according to Ukrainian specifications, should only be regarded as a supplementary measure," says the current one President of the Conference of Ministers of Education (KMK), the Schleswig-Holstein Education Minister Karin Prien (CDU).

Heike Schmoll

Political correspondent in Berlin, responsible for “Bildungswelten”.

  • Follow I follow

According to current figures from the KMK, there are almost 61,000 Ukrainian children and young people in German schools.

Whether there will be more and how quickly they will come depends on the further course of the war.

Some have already dropped out of school and are returning to Ukraine, but the returnees are not a mass phenomenon, says Prien of the FAZ. With more than 12,000 students, Bavaria is at the top.

200 Ukrainian teachers have been contracted there.

Compulsory schooling only begins there three months after moving in, but that doesn't mean that classes aren't offered before then.

The same applies to Baden-Württemberg, where compulsory schooling only begins six months after immigration, but the right to attend school comes into effect immediately.

In Schleswig-Holstein, compulsory schooling begins immediately after taking up residence in the state.

There are more than 3,000 Ukrainian children and young people who attend schools or so-called DaZ centers, especially in the commuter belt around Hamburg, in Pinneberg and Stormarn.

New practical problems every day

In the northern parts of the country there are fewer and fewer.

What goes by the name of “welcome class” in Berlin is the current 250 DaZ centers there, where teachers with a degree in German as a foreign language (DaF) or German as a second language (DaZ) or teachers with appropriate further training teach German to foreign students.

With their own curriculum, the DaZ centers are also responsible for teaching cultural basics and preparing the students for everyday life in Germany, in which they should find their way as soon as possible.

The school authorities are responsible for the DaZ centers in Schleswig-Holstein.

They get together every week, ensure that there are enough teachers on site and, where necessary, that new DaZ centers are set up.

“We have a tried and tested system that we have continuously developed since 2015 and that has also continued to qualify specialist staff for German as a second language.

That proves its worth in this situation,” says the Minister of Education.

Nevertheless, new practical problems arise every day: residence status, certificates, the obligatory measles vaccination, the desired corona vaccination and much more have to be clarified on site.

"Last autumn, the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians in Schleswig-Holstein carried out a major vaccination campaign at schools on our initiative, and we were extremely successful with it.

We should start a vaccination campaign again before autumn”.

This would then also include the Ukrainian students.

The same applies to the teachers.

“I make no secret of the fact that I would have liked to have kept the mask requirement as an effective protective measure in schools as an option for longer.

Unfortunately, the traffic light coalition prevented this with its new Infection Protection Act.

High proportion of career changers in Berlin

Even if there is a significant shortage of teachers in all countries, Prien believes that the teacher problem for refugee schools can be solved.

If the part-time employees in the system increase their allowances, retirees return to schools or DaZ centers for a limited time and give lessons and students are also used, the provision of lessons can be guaranteed.

It is still unclear what that looks like in other countries like Berlin, where a high proportion of career changers are already teaching anyway.