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The Integration Panel – results of a long-sectional study on the effectiveness and sustainability of integration courses ,
The integration courses, which were introduced in 2005, were evaluated for the first time with the Integration Panel in order to ascertain their impact. The Integration Panel provides sound data on and analyses of integration courses and their effectiveness and sustainability. The size of the sample, initially 3,900 integration course attendees, as well as the survey of a control group of 3,700 individuals and its random selection, document that this has made it possible to obtain authoritative information.
Integration courses are effective and their results are sustainable
Integration course attendees were able to increase their language skills over the course much more markedly than persons who never attended an integration course. 93 percent of course attendees improved their German skills over the integration course.
Attending an integration course primarily enables those immigrants to learn German whose language development would have been minimal had they not attended a course: Persons with a low level of education, existing immigrants, immigrants coming to Germany as spouses through family reunification, persons migrating to Germany as refugees, as well as those who do not live in a German-speaking environment. Integration courses thus offer an opportunity for immigrants who seldom have the opportunity to improve their knowledge of German without outside assistance.
New arrivals who devote their energies to learning the new language with the aid of an integration course can very quickly reach the language level of persons who have been in Germany for very much longer.
Immigrants manage better in Germany as a result of attending the courses
The Integration Panel basically shows that attending an integration course facilitates considerable progress in all aspects of integration. The evaluations of the Integration Panel confirm that the integration course is an important tool in order to obtain knowledge of fundamental everyday areas, and hence achieve successful integration quickly.
In addition to learning German, the integration course enables contacts to be established with Germans, fosters a feeling of attachment to Germany and sets the stage for subsequent integration into the labour market. The empirical results and a comparison with immigrants who have not attended an integration course demonstrate the support role played by integration courses for integrating immigrants into German society.
Course attendees' evaluation of the integration courses positive
The majority of integration course attendees have a positive evaluation of the integration courses. Persons obliged to attend a course find it to be just as much fun as those who attend voluntarily. Looking back, the majority of respondents state that they learnt a lot or a very considerable amount of German at the integration course, and roughly three-quarters of attendees consider their expectations regarding the integration course to have been met.
The Research Report was drafted by: Karin Schuller, Susanne Lochner and Dr. Nina Rother
The report is only available in German.