Piwarz sees schools at breaking point due to migration

The Saxon Minister of Culture, Christian Piwarz (CDU), believes that schools in the Free State are reaching their limits due to the high number of children and young people with foreign roots. Integration work in a class can only be achieved up to a proportion of around 30 percent of pupils with a migration background, he said in an interview with the "Leipziger Volkszeitung" newspaper on Wednesday. "That's what all the experts say, and that's what our concept is based on. And if the proportion is higher - and it is significantly higher at quite a few schools in Saxony - it is precisely this integration effort on our part that is not successful."

Piwarz also attributed Germany's poor performance in the current Pisa study to this. "Pupils entering first grade in Saxony show development and performance differences of more than two years. This shows that something is going wrong." The number of pupils from other countries has tripled in less than ten years. "This is not leaving the education system unscathed."

Saxony had already announced that some of the unaccompanied refugee minors would no longer be taught in regular classes in order to ease the burden on the school system. According to Piwarz, the concept is to be implemented from the 2024/2025 school year. It will hardly be possible to lead the young refugees to graduation in the two or three remaining years of their compulsory schooling. "Instead, we have to make sure that we teach them German first and foremost and ensure that they can start an apprenticeship."