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IMMIGRATION

Immigrant children see big improvements in school results

Presenting a biennial report on integration on Friday, the government's integration commissioner painted a positive picture of improvements made in Germany in recent years.

Immigrant children see big improvements in school results
Photo: DPA

“In terms of participation and integration we’re on the right path in Germany,” Aydan Özoguz concluded in remarks on the report titled “Participation, equal opportunity and developing rights in immigrant country Germany.”

“Children with immigrant backgrounds are much more likely to go to kindergarten, more teenagers are getting higher school qualifications in comparison with five years ago, employment among immigrants is up,” she said.

The report details how in 2015, 17 percent of children from immigrant families completed an Abitur, the university prep exams taken at the end of high school. This was an increase from nine percent in 2010.

The percentage of children from immigrant families with a final school qualification also rose from 38 percent to 43 percent.

There are 17.2 million people who live in Germany with an immigration background, 21 percent of the total population and 1.8 million more than in 2014. Around half of them hold German citizenship, while most come from Poland, Russia or Turkey.
 
But the Social Democrat politician added that chances of success later in life were still heavily dependent on whether a child has an immigrant background.

People with immigration backgrounds are still twice as likely to live in poverty as those with no immigration background, a fact which has remained unchanged for years, Özoguz noted.

“Also, even if the number of people with migration backgrounds in employment has risen from 7.54 million to 7.72 million, unemployment is now almost three times as high among immigrants as it is among German citizens.”

Özoguz also pointed with concern at a heated public debate surrounding the alleged dangers that have arrived with the almost 900,000 refugees Germany took in during 2015.

Taking aim at the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, Özoguz said that the party had ridden on the back of refugees “to create opinions that don’t always correspond to the truth.”

She emphasized that, while the fears of certain people in society shouldn’t be condemned outright as racism, there are people “who are trying to create the image that criminality will rise if more refugees come here.”

The reality is that there are significant differences between different refugee groups, she said, adding that “at the moment there is as good as no criminality among Syrian refugees.”

IMMIGRATION

France ‘will not welcome migrants’ from Lampedusa: interior minister

France "will not welcome migrants" from the island, Gérald Darmanin has insisted

France 'will not welcome migrants' from Lampedusa: interior minister

France will not welcome any migrants coming from Italy’s Lampedusa, interior minister Gérald Darmanin has said after the Mediterranean island saw record numbers of arrivals.

Some 8,500 people arrived on Lampedusa on 199 boats between Monday and Wednesday last week, according to the UN’s International Organisation for
Migration, prompting European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to travel there Sunday to announce an emergency action plan.

According to Darmanin, Paris told Italy it was “ready to help them return people to countries with which we have good diplomatic relations”, giving the
example of Ivory Coast and Senegal.

But France “will not welcome migrants” from the island, he said, speaking on French television on Tuesday evening.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has called on Italy’s EU partners to share more of the responsibility.

The recent arrivals on Lampedusa equal more than the whole population of the tiny Italian island.

The mass movement has stoked the immigration debate in France, where political parties in the country’s hung parliament are wrangling over a draft law governing new arrivals.

France is expected to face a call from Pope Francis for greater tolerance towards migrants later this week during a high-profile visit to Mediterranean city Marseille, where the pontiff will meet President Emmanuel Macron and celebrate mass before tens of thousands in a stadium.

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