Munich, Germany —
To support the integration of newly arrived migrants and refugees, the City of Munich, Germany, offers individual educational profiling and targeted activities.
The programme is based on an approach of empowerment and, among other things, includes intensive psycho-social support for those in need.
The objective of the programme is to support the participation of newly arrived migrants and refugees in vocational education, apprenticeships and the labour market. The programme is based on the recognition that extended periods of labour market and social exclusion have a negative impact on people’s skills, self-confidence and motivation.
The programme ensures that newly arrived migrants and refugees are offered counselling related to education and training from the first day of arrival in the city. The programme starts with an individual educational profiling by the counselling centre “IBZ Sprache and Beruf” that helps identify individual needs and orient people towards the various programmes available. These include German language, basic education and catching up on school-leaving qualifications (also for people over 25), preparation courses for the labour market, and support in the transition from school to training and employment. Each new educational programme or offer is authorised by the local government and promoted through different newsletters.
A characteristic of the programme is the emphasis on intensive psycho-social support. In addition, the programme follows an approach of empowerment, where the definition of learning goals takes into account the individual capacities of learners and individual achievements, living conditions and personal goals. Lastly, the programme is organised to effectively meet the needs of highly heterogeneous groups of learners, therefore classes are limited to 16 participants and the programme is adapted to students’ needs.
The main stakeholders in the project are the local administration, independent providers, and social workers. The local administration is responsible for the analysis of existing and future programmes, their scope and content, the control and communication with independent providers and the counselling centre, which transfers clients to providers. The providers are responsible for the actual provision of education and training. The social workers are in charge of the provision of information concerning the needs of the target group vs. the provision of educational programmes and the signing in of clients to counselling centres. The programme is co-founded by the European Social Fund.
According to the city, a key success factor that could be transferred to other places is the special emphasis placed on intensive psycho-social support, which is anchored in all programmes and services provided. In addition, the limited size of classes, the flexibility of programme content, and the definition of learning goals based on the capacities of learners can be seen as a strength of the programme.
OECD (2022), "Future-proofing adult learning systems in cities and regions: A policy manual for local governments", OECD Local Economic and Employment Development (LEED) Papers, No. 2022/03, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/11fa26cc-en.
