TDespite a major shortage of staff and under the already difficult conditions of the Corona crisis, teachers at German schools took on many additional tasks last year in order to integrate more than 200,000 children and young people from Ukraine into their schools. This is the result of a survey of 356 high school principals in Baden-Württemberg, Berlin, Brandenburg, Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saarland by the Federal Conference of Directors of Gymnasiums (BDK) and the German Association of Philologists. Only half of the respondents who hosted Ukrainian students received additional teaching staff, the other half had no additional teachers available.
At almost every fifth school with Ukrainian students, part-time teachers had increased their hours, and some retired teachers also returned. However, the clear majority of school heads is of the opinion that not enough staff can currently be recruited to teach Ukrainian students. In rural areas, 68 percent of those surveyed said so, in the cities the proportion is somewhat lower at 63 percent.
88 percent of the grammar schools took in students from Ukraine, around a third up to ten, another up to 20 new students and 16 percent of those surveyed even up to 30 children and young people. 40 percent of those surveyed stated that they also accept students if this exceeds the usual class size, while 60 percent avoid doing so.
The majority of schools (58 percent) have not set up any preparatory classes that also teach German. Only 37 percent of high schools believe that students have been assigned the right type of school for their abilities, with 63 percent of the school principals surveyed denying this.
Most Ukrainian students are in North Rhine-Westphalia (38,151), followed by Bavaria (29,405) and Baden-Württemberg (28,549). The federal directors’ conference called on cultural policy to quickly make more teaching hours available and not to wait until the new student numbers are reflected in the statistics.
