European Trade Union Committee for Education

At the beginning of the school year, the ETUCE member organisations from Germany are raising awareness to the importance of integrating and including refugee children in schools. Every child has a right to education. Many teachers, wishing to engage in including refugee kids and young people, are often left on their own with this challenge.

The German teacher unions have proposed different measures to integrate the partly traumatised children with different cultural backgrounds, levels of education and mother tongues into the German education system. Marlis Tepe, the chairwomen of the trade union for Education and Science (Gewerkschaft für Erziehung und Wissenschaft/ GEW) has called on local authorities, the federal states, and the German government to increase their support to school leadership and teachers. The Federation of Education and Training (Verband Bildung und Erziehung/ VBE) demands a common financing plan by the German federal states for the schooling of refugee children and highlights that short-run agendas would not help. In order to ensure equality of educational opportunities the number of social workers and educational staff should be increased. These measures would not only ensure a more tolerant learning environment in schools, it would give teacher the time to address and tackle racism.

ETUCE welcomes the commitment of the German teacher unions and invites other member organisation to a solidary engagement for an equal society in which the heritage of children does not affect their education level. Europe should be able to allow every child access to education, regardless their resident status and heritage. The right to education is a human right which cannot be suspended due to financial shortage in the public budget.

To read more about the engagement, of the GEW please click here and here

To read more about the engagement, of the VBE, please click here and here