News from Berlin

German Government Continues Professional German Language Courses for Migrants

May 12th, 2014
BAMF Funds Language Courses for Migrants.jpg

News from Berlin - The Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtinge (Federal Office for Migrations and Refugees, BAMF), has decided to continue with a program aimed at providing workers with migration backgrounds with language courses, renewing it's funding at least until the end of 2014. This program is the result of the cooperation between the Federal Office for Migrations and Refugees, the Europäische Sozialfonds für Deutschland (ESF) and the European Union, and is part of a wider program implemented to further the integration of migrants in Germany. Indeed, the BAMF offers a wide range of courses in order to prepare migrants to take the tests required to obtain German citizenship through naturalization, but also simply to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to manage the integration process well.

In this regard, the Office believes in the importance of being able to engage in a stable professional activity, for which a good level of spoken and written German is necessary. Thus, the Government has agreed to go on with the ESF-BAMF program, which specifically aims at providing courses which enable participants to learn German for professional purposes. For the Federal Minister of Labor Andrea Nahles, this program is a very important pillar for the integration of people with immigrant backgrounds within the labor market.

The Government will keep on carrying out this policy through a renewal of the funds thereto allocated, with a new input of 34 millions euros until the end of 2014. As of March 31st 2014, around 121,000 participants have benefitted from this program, thereby confirming the need for such a policy and its wide scope, particularly in a country in which the net migration figure exceeds 500,000, and partly allows to compensate for the particularly low fertility rate.

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