Education: Hope for newcomers in Europe
Only on the last page, the KMK addresses the fact that not all children and youth will be allowed to stay in Germany. It recommends that specific measures should be developed for persons ‘with an uncertain staying perspective’ so that they receive education that serves their livelihood in their home country (KMK, 2016d, p.4). However, an uncertain staying perspective is not specific for a certain share of refugee children and youth, but generally affects all of them during their asylum application procedure. It seems that ‘uncertain staying perspective’ actually means ‘expected return’, referring to those categorised as persons from safe countries of origin. The topic needs further reflection, as unpredictability or a really ‘uncertain’ staying perspective may be the key challenge for the formulation of adequate curricula and for learning processes. Mechanisms to disseminate and implement the KMK’s agreements differ across states so that it is unclear how much of the recommendations trickle down to the local level and individual schools. In Bremen, for instance, the 2014-18 state plan for migration and education reflects the KMK recommendations of 2013 (Senatorin für Kinder und Bildung, 2014, p.32–40). The concept for language education of 2013 mainly concerns students socialised in Germany who are disadvantaged in school because they speak another language at home or because families have limited linguistic capacities (Senatorin für Bildung und Wissenschaft, 2013). Preparatory German courses are only briefly described in the plan. In addition, in teacher education at the University of Bremen, training in German as a second language used to focus on the specific learning needs of children who were brought up in Germany speaking a different language in the family. It is only recently that the needs of German language learners are addressed and handled more intensively.
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