Pandemic slows integration: “We can no longer achieve a large part”


Pandemic slows down integration
“We can no longer achieve a large part”

The coronavirus makes life difficult for people and industries in all directions. This also applies to refugees. Federal government figures show: The pandemic has stopped many language and integration courses. The students fall behind in learning German.

Those affected and experts feared what new data and figures show: The corona crisis means a serious setback for integration in Germany. From March to June of last year the system of integration courses “practically came to a complete standstill” and has been “severely restricted again” since December, the federal government admits in a response to a request from the Green parliamentary group. The paper is available from ntv.

This shows that the offers reach refugees and migrants much less than they did before the pandemic. Only 63 percent of those entitled actually take part in the courses. Before Corona it was 75 percent. The decline in literacy programs and for recipients of unemployment benefits is particularly strong.

Insufficient BAMF support

Christiane Carstensen is not surprised. She is the managing director of the professional association for integration and professional language courses. “We can no longer achieve a very large part,” she says in an interview with ntv. The first lockdown caught the entire integration course system off guard. Media skills among teachers and participants, WLAN in the facilities, sufficiently large rooms, flexibility in the authorities – all of them are nil. Many courses, however, are still on hold today.

The federal government recognizes at least for the first Corona phase: “The participants threatened […] Due to the interruption, a loss of the language proficiency already acquired. “Until December, the courses would have taken place in most of the federal states.

And indeed: the responsible Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) made various options available relatively quickly: face-to-face courses in rooms suitable for pandemics, completely virtual lessons and various hybrid models. Christiane Carstensen from the Integration Course Association certainly recognizes this. However, she criticizes that the BAMF was very soon switched to “administrative mode”. There is no advice, no training, no best practice examples.

“Drop in the ocean”

Overall, however, the federal government is satisfied with its answer to the Greens’ question. The BAMF has “made numerous flexibilizations possible in the short term and, in particular, facilitated the increased digitization of courses,” it says there. It is correct: the state provides 1,500 euros pandemic allowance per 100 teaching units. This allows course providers to purchase WiFi access and digital devices for the participants, for example.

In addition, however, the allowance is intended to be a financial compensation for the smaller learning groups due to the corona – because bills will continue to be based on the number of participants. The integration policy spokeswoman for the Greens in the Bundestag, Filiz Polat, calls the pandemic allowance a “drop in the ocean”. It is too low for the many purposes, “especially if we take into account the precarious situation of the teachers even before the pandemic.”

Polat worries that it has hit people with special needs hard. Less than half of the participants achieved language level A2 in courses on literacy, and the learning objectives would also be missed more often in courses for women and parents. The reasons are obvious, says Polat: “Literacy is difficult to organize online and without childcare, learning in the women’s and parenting courses is extremely limited.” The federal government has no solution concepts, she criticizes.

Illiterate people can often not speak digitally

However, the coalition also admits that there are “special challenges” for illiterate people in virtual teaching. Christiane Carstensen puts it more drastically: “In a course like this you have four to five people who have problems getting their cell phones on at all.” For people who are working towards a high German level of B2 or C1 in courses, virtual lessons are not a problem either. “But in literacy courses, many are not that digital and shy away from attending such a course.”

But how could it go better? Above all, Carstensen wants one thing: Less bureaucracy and paragraph rhetoric at the BAMF. The office insists, for example, that really all participants are properly logged in using a laptop and not individual participants using their smartphones. In order to get a fee for each participant, teachers would have had to submit screenshots of the participant “tiles” from the video chat to the authority. All of this costs porters and teachers a lot of time, which they would rather invest in the actual (emergency) lessons. Carstensen also demands that the teachers are rewarded if they instruct the participants in digital media.

The fact that the system of literacy courses is still running at least halfway is mainly thanks to the courage of the employees, says the head of the association. Some even prefer to continue their courses on a voluntary basis than to adhere to the many requirements of the BAMF. They forego the money.

.