Refugee Assimilation in Germany: Education Part II

This, of course, is a drop in the bucket compared to the estimated 50,000 refugees who are reportedly interested in pursuing a degree in Germany. And the number who have successfully registered in degree programs at regular universities is even smaller. In the 2016 winter semester, a total of 1,140 refugees were matriculated at German universities, the majority of whom were from Syria.

Asylees can generally attend German universities without restrictions. The lack of German language proficiency and other hurdles, however, deter refugee enrollment at public universities. At the undergraduate level, where degree programs are almost exclusively offered in German, all international students, including refugees, must present a qualification equivalent to the German university-preparatory high school diploma, and demonstrate advanced German language abilities, at minimum at level C1, CEFR. For English-language programs, which exist primarily at the graduate level, a comparable certification of English skills, such as the TOEFL test, may be required.

Source: http://wenr.wes.org/2017/05/lessons-germanys-refugee-crisis-integration-costs-benefits

Refugee Assimilation Germany: Education Part I

Among the many efforts to facilitate refugee access to higher education, one of the most groundbreaking is provided by Kiron University, a non-profit, crowd-funded online university that was founded in 2015 with the exclusive goal of educating refugees. The institution partners with online education platforms like coursera or edx to provide free online courses, using existing online course offerings by world-class universities including Harvard University, the University of Cambridge, or MIT. The service offered by Kiron University is remarkable: Not only does the institution not have academic admission requirements, language, passport and residency requirements, or, for that matter, any other forms of bureaucratic hurdles; it even provides each student with a free laptop and internet access.

Kiron is not a recognized university in Germany and does not award degrees. But 22 partner universities in Germany and other countries currently allow Kiron students to transfer into their degree programs, usually after completion of four semesters of study at Kiron University. The large number of donations and applications that Kiron has received since its foundation are testament to the fact that many refugees are seeking a less bureaucratic and more immediate alternative to the comparatively hurdled long-term pathways available at German brick-and-mortar universities. In its first semester alone, Kiron received 5,000 applications, 80 percent of them from Syrian refugees. The institution currently enrolls 2,300 refugees.

Source: http://wenr.wes.org/2017/05/lessons-germanys-refugee-crisis-integration-costs-benefits

Refugee Assimilation in Germany: Employment Part II

In addition to government programs, there are numerous private sector initiatives in Germany to help refugees into the workforce. Like the public sector programs, these private initiatives have not yet done much to boost refugee employment. One problem with the current private initiatives is that they often focus on low-skilled jobs, internships and temporary positions that, as of now, rarely lead to fulltime employment. For instance, some 300 companies included in a so-called “Network of Businesses Integrating Refugees” employed a total of 2,500 refugees in October 2016. This figure, however, also included temporary employment contracts, internships, and training programs. German businesses tend to be careful when hiring refugees and often use internships to evaluate the suitability of refugees for subsequent vocational training programs. This means that refugees on this track are often still years away from actual fulltime wage jobs.


Source:http://wenr.wes.org/2017/05/lessons-germanys-refugee-crisis-integration-costs-benefits

Refugee Assimilation in Germany: Employment Part I

A 2016 study by the research department of Deutsche Bank concluded that the successful integration of the refugees could help to balance Germany’s age structure and increase its labor force, and should be regarded as an “investment in the future” and “win-win scenario” with the potential to give Germany “the opportunity to consolidate its position as Europe’s economic powerhouse.”

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Much of these projected benefits will depend on the speed and success of integration efforts, and more work is needed. The stakes are high: If integration fails, the continued presence of large numbers of refugees in Germany could result in sustained net transfer payments from the public sector, while at best providing a supply of labor for low-skilled jobs.

But if the integration succeeds, the economic benefits promise to be considerable. A 2015 study by the “German Institute for Economic Research” predicted that the current cost-intensive investments in integration would, within the next years, reach a break-even point. After that, increased employment and consumption by the refugees may stimulate economic growth that could, in the best case-scenario, yield more than a one percent increase in German GDP by 2025.

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The integration of immigrant populations in Germany is problematic in general, due to language barriers, resentments in German society, and other factors...The workforce integration of the refugees thus needs to be understood as a long-term process that is likely to accelerate over time. While only an estimated nine percent of refugees who arrived in 2015 were employed by 2016, that same figure was 22 percent among refugees that had arrived in 2014, and 31 percent among those that had arrived in 2013.

One focal point of German government efforts to accelerate employment among refugees has been a 9-month integration ‘course’. Established in 2005, long before the current crisis, the course is designed to expedite the assimilation of approved asylees, helping them to obtain needed linguistic skills, as well as softer cultural skills and understanding. The course includes a 60-hour cultural “orientation” unit introducing German society and culture, as well as 600 contact hours of German-language instruction. One goal is to enable participants to obtain an intermediate-level language certificate at level B1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). In the wake of the 2015 crisis, asylum applicants, and other ‘tolerated’ refugees were granted permission to take these courses prior to obtaining asylee status. In July 2016, Germany’s government passed legislation requiring that asylum seekers take integration courses, lest they lose government benefits and the legal right to remain in the country.


Source: http://wenr.wes.org/2017/05/lessons-germanys-refugee-crisis-integration-costs-benefits