German schools should limit spaces for migrant kids, says minister

Germany’s Education Minister Karin Prien (CDU) has suggested that schools limit the number of spaces available for pupils with a migration background, drawing inspiration from an existing system in Denmark.

Prien says German schools should limit spaces for migrant kids

Germany’s Minister for Education, Family, Seniors, Women and Youth has said that schools in the federal republic should limit the number of class spaces available to children who have a migrant background. 

While slicing a lemon and chopping some mint on WELT TV’s show Politikergrillen (“Grilling politicians” or “politicians barbecuing”), host Jan Philipp Burgard pressed the minister as to why German schools had recently performed so poorly in the OECD’s PISA assessment. Prien said poor performance was due to the mix of children in the school system and that many refugee children in Germany start school with insufficient German skills.

Burgard told Prien the Danish government requires schools in areas with a high proportion of migrant-background children to pause pupil applications to attract more “ethnically Danish” students. Prien agreed that this was one route Germany could take, limiting migrant-background pupil numbers to 30 to 40 percent of students in a class.

“We know of other models that work too,” Prien explained, “For me, the deciding factor is what we do between the ages of three and six, and whether we are making sure that children can speak German when they go to school. Without good German at school age, children don’t have a good chance.” Prien said four-year-olds should take a mandatory German language test so that prospective school pupils who need extra language support can be identified.

More than a quarter of the overall German population has a migration background. According to the Deutsches Kinderhilfswerk (German Children’s Aid Organisation), in many western German cities, as many as 60 percent of kids have a migration background.

Prien’s migrant pupil limits face widespread criticism

Prien’s suggestions were quickly met with criticism from across the political spectrum. Federal Integration Commissioner Natalie Pawlik (SPD) stated, “Germany does not need classroom quotas,” and pupils would be better served with targeted support.

Criticism also came from The Left Party (Die Linke), who called Prien’s suggestion unrealistic and warned of further stigmatisation and exclusion of pupils with migrant backgrounds as a knock-on effect. 

The AfD's criticism came from the opposite angle, with the far-right party arguing Prien’s suggestion to limit the number of migrant-background kids to 30 or 40 percent per class was too high, and should be reduced to 10 percent. A report in the education magazine News4Teachers pointed out that a limit on migration-background kids in German schools was first proposed by the AfD in Brandenburg.

Speaking to IamExpat, the Deutsches Kinderhilfswerk said debates sparked by Prien’s suggestion were old and distracted from the core issue, “a chronically underfunded education system and all of its negative consequences: crumbling school buildings, dilapidated school toilets, a lack of digital equipment, classes that are too large and too little individual support for pupils”. 

The organisation added that “as a migration country”, systematic support for migration-background kids must be a focus, but that all children could benefit from language tests and support in a “targeted and everyday manner”. “What we don’t need [...] is children being transported across the city, making it impossible for them to attend school near home.”