Education International Research
3. Local implementation in Bremen and other states Recommendations by the KMK and by Bremen’s 2014-18 state plan for migration and education encourage schools to be aware of opportunities involved with teaching students from different countries and backgrounds (KMK, 2013; Senatorin für Kinder und Bildung, 2014). For instance, the presence of these students could increase interest in global issues, could offer foreign language learning opportunities for local students, and could motivate schools to address international migration not as something exceptional but as a normal feature of schooling. However, opportunities involved with these developments are rarely mentioned in the context of current migration movements. Exceptions can be found in pilot programmes. For example, a programme at the University of Potsdam in the state of Brandenburg seeks to qualify refugees with a teacher qualification from another country to allow them to work in German schools. Besides qualifying teachers, the programme also aims to enrich the German education system through the use of pedagogic staff with migration experiences and a non-German cultural and language background and by providing opportunities for joint intercultural learning in teacher education at the university.23 The public debate about immigration emphasises integration challenges, as does the main part of this section, which focuses on access to education, the organisation of the introductory phase, and interactions once newly arrived students are in regular classes.
3.1. Access to education
3.1.1. Multiple changes in learning arrangements Access to education is not an issue confined to the very beginning of a refugee’s stay. The nature of the asylum procedure, which involves several changes of residence, has consequences for education. Figure 3 summarises key features of a reception procedure and what they mean for school access and change. 23 https://www.uni-potsdam.de/unterrichtsinterventionsforsch/refugee/kursbeschreibung.html Accessed 19 October 2017.
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