In workshop classes like here in Reutlingen, the young refugees learn German on the side. But the offer should fall. Photo: Allgower
Young asylum seekers often fail to graduate from school because they speak too little German. One solution could be to extend the preparatory classes from one to two years, say the educators.
Reutlingen – They do exist, the success stories among refugees. For example that of Simon Dandi from Togo. He came to Germany alone, attended a refugee class at the Reutlingen vocational school center, the “pre-qualification year work and profession for young people without knowledge of German” (Vabo), as they say in official German. He switched to the regular class and graduated from secondary school after another year. In September he starts his training as a nurse and he also has an apartment. “I’m lucky, my life is going well,” says the now 21-year-old.
Simon is an exception. A vocabulary class lasts one year, after which the students should take the A2 language test. They should be able to understand and use sentences and frequently used expressions in everyday situations. “What do you need a cell phone for? So that my family can always reach me ”. That is the level. After the refugee class, they are supposed to prepare for the secondary school certificate together with the locals in a further special class. Simon is the only one of ten refugees in the class with 18 students who has graduated from secondary school, reports headmaster Hans-Joachim Stark, the headmaster of the Kerschenstein school in the vocational school center in Reutlingen.
Most of the time, German language skills are not sufficient after one year of Vabo. Then the problems begin. To the regret of the teachers, those who do not come with us are often "completely left behind". Quite a few young refugees are traumatized and simply cannot motivate themselves. Experts consider one year of Vabo to be too short.
Stark and his colleagues are calling for the refugee classes to be set up for two years. Then they see a chance that the young refugees can learn enough German in order to successfully prepare for a school leaving certificate. The Goethe-Instituts also recommend a language level for training that is one or better two levels above level A2. "Integration takes years," says Stark. Such a vocabulary class can only be a first step.
The state government wants the young people to learn German as quickly as possible. They are not stingy with positions, most of them can be filled. Even if not with formally correctly trained teachers and almost always for a limited period.
In order to speed up learning German, the curriculum of the classes has now been changed. From the coming school year onwards, the workshop lessons that are popular with refugees will be dispensed with four hours a week in order to have more time for German lessons. The practitioners do not like that either. "It would be good if the workshop block were back in," says school principal Stark. However, the problem is that the subject teachers are missing.
In Reutlingen, for example, nine refugees are currently able to produce stencils in the screen printing room of the apprentice painters. You didn’t choose that. There was just enough space in the painting workshops.
Meanwhile, the grammar schools are also opening up for preparatory classes. One of them will be set up at the Albert Einstein Gymnasium in Reutlingen. Ten hours of German per week are planned, plus curriculum lessons in the subjects. For one year there should be a separate timetable for the students.
But headmaster Gunther Ernst shows the limits of the grammar schools. The high schools could deal with ten to eleven year olds very well, but from the age of 15 it becomes difficult. In the higher grades, the German language skills were no longer sufficient to follow the subject lessons. Older students are right at vocational schools, says Ernst. The school administration assumes that only about 40 percent of the refugees who are in preparatory classes at secondary schools can also switch to regular classes there.
There are no significant problems with handling. Marion Kramer cannot believe rumors that things will get worse with integration in the regular classes. "A look at the lists of names at the vocational schools shows that we practice living together here," says the department head for economics at the Theodor Heuss School.
Linda Engelhard, 25 years old and of a graceful stature, only knows refugees’ integration problems from hearsay. She has been running a vocabulary class at the Kerschenstein School for two years. “I had no problems in either class,” she reports. There are no other authority problems than with other students. Rather the opposite. “Many students come from authoritarian systems and are more likely than others to accept what the teacher says,” says the young woman. And stories that, for example, German schoolgirls only come to school in long trousers to avoid being molested, refer them to the realm of rumors. The proportion of refugees among the schoolchildren is far too low to create uncertainty in the schoolyard.
The vocational school teachers association is also unaware of any special incidents. “You hear a lot of vagueness, nothing has happened in schools,” says Herbert Huber, chairman of the vocational school teachers’ association. However, the language problems and the risk of failure remain, especially in the regular classes. The refugees have to learn to deal with this, says Marion Kramer. "We have to instill courage and act against excessive wishes." The most important thing is to stabilize the young refugees: "This is a lot of work.".