Students with immigration history: NRW in the change in education!

Students with immigration history: NRW in the change in education!

Düsseldorf, Deutschland - Düsseldorf (IT.NRW) - an alarming increase! In the school year 2023/24, shocking 43.0 percent of the over 2.5 million students in North Rhine-Westphalia affected immigration. That means more than a million young people have a migration story. This proportion has increased drastically within just five years, 36.9 percent in the 2018/19 school year. A moment of thinking for education policy!

The hotspots of immigration: Wuppertal, Duisburg and Gelsenkirchen

Where can most of these students be found? In the cities of Wuppertal (58.6 percent), Duisburg (58.3 percent) and Gelsenkirchen (57.7 percent), the number of students is booming with immigration history. In contrast, the districts of Coesfeld (22.8 percent), Borken (26.8 percent) and Euskirchen (26.8 percent) have the lowest shares. The gap could hardly be larger!

But that's not all! In primary schools there is an above -average proportion of around 31 percent of children with a migration background, while almost half of the students can be found in comprehensive schools, high schools or vocational colleges. In comparison, only about a quarter of the students without a migration history attend a primary school. However, almost 60 percent of them are enrolled at higher -quality schools. It is a clear inequality that cannot be ignored!

The definition is clear: students with immigration history are those who were born abroad or whose parents come from abroad. The language at home also plays a role: if it is not German, the students fall into this group. Statistics that show important trends, but were only published for data protection reasons from the school year 2019/20.

Time is urged - education policy must now react to meet these challenges!