Educational Policies for Immigrants: A Comparative Study of France and Germany

Multiculturalism as a movement and a theoretical framework has touched different aspects of human life, particularly in Europe that has a population composition defined by diversity. Most often, this diversity constitutes existence of minorities; indigenous and immigrant. Different treaties of EU clearly make statements about immigrant well-being emphasizing action. Educational policies form the fundamental instruments in deciding whether a minority is assimilated, integrated, or isolated.

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the educational policies adopted and implemented for the immigrants in France and Germany. Large immigrant population resides in both of these European countries, approx. 5.1 million in France and 6.4 million in Germany. Recently immigration to countries within the EU is showing a rising trend and is expected to increase in the future. Educational policies implemented in both of these countries include bilateral agreements in which certain classes in the language of host origin are replaced by that oftheir mother tongue, as a part of foreign languages courses. The French national and educational policies are uniform and restrictive and fail to accommodate and integrate its Muslim inhabitants. Germany on the other has been considerably open to accept its ethnic inhabitants (particularly Turkish) and has been able to reach the immigrant communities. Educational reforms and revision of policies are required to solve the problem of social integration and imparting quality education to inhabitants despite them being immigrants of ethnic minority. The paper delves deeper into these matters and makes a comparison of policies in these two countries.