TEACHERS FOR REFUGEES

Germany has recruited 8,500 new teachers to teach German to the 196,000 refugees who have entered its education system this year.  More than 8,000 special classes have been set up in schools to help the new pupils with learning German. A total of 325,000 school-aged children from Syria, Afghanistan, and African countries have arrived in Germany this year, and the country is likely to need up to 20,000 new teachers to fill the gap in teaching personnel. But the challenge is far larger than simply teaching the foreign students a new language. Many of refugee children have lost years of education (2.6 million Syrian children are not in school); some of them don’t know a single written language. One in five of the children arriving in Germany as refugees have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and half have experienced significant trauma. Written by Hanna Kozlowska, in Quartz, December 28, 2015