Immigrant Student Enrollment in Germany Hits Record Highs

Nearly half of all schools in North Rhine–Westphalia now have a majority of pupils with a migrant background, with many primary schools reporting that more than 75 percent of their students are from immigrant families. The rising proportion of migrant children is fueling an increasingly heated debate in Germany’s education system over quotas, language instruction, and social integration.

Immigrant Students and Future of Education

The numbers reflect reality: we are living in a society of immigrants, and our schools are shaped by cultural diversity,

said Ayla Celik, head of a teachers’ union, in remarks to Deutsche Presse-Agentur. She urged greater investment in schools to ensure "diversity can be turned into an advantage for fair education". 

The teachers' union head called for expanded language support, intercultural teacher training and targeted assistance, particularly in preschools and primary schools.

While very few German high schools (3.2 percent) report migrant shares above 75 percent, the figure is higher in middle schools (around 17 percent) and especially in primary schools (over 10 percent).

In der Gräfenauschule in Ludwigshafen-Hemshof (quasi dem Stadtteil, in dem ich mein Abitur gemacht habe) haben 98 Prozent der Schüler einen Migrationshintergrund. Von 490 Schülern hatten letztes Jahr 440 Förderbedarf, 170 sprachen bei der Einschulung kein Deutsch, dutzende… pic.twitter.com/qGzWx3wf9O

— Jan A. Karon (@jannibal_) June 24, 2025

Debate on Quotas

Federal Education Minister Karin Prien has proposed introducing quotas to limit the share of migrant-background pupils in schools, suggesting a cap of 30–40 percent. 

We need to manage migration better within our education system,” 

she argued. But Stefan Dull, president of the German Teachers’ Association, said the real issue was not immigration background itself but inadequate German-language skills. 

For years, the German Teachers' Association has been saying that a large proportion of students lacking German language skills in a classroom greatly hinders the work of teachers,

he wrote in a statement to DW. He warned that shifting pupils between schools according to quotas would not only not strengthen social cohesion but would be nearly impossible to implement in practice.

Students Are Also Protesting

Student organizations also sharply criticized the quota idea, saying it sends a dangerous signal that not all children are equally welcome. 

Schools should be places of participation, not exclusion,

the federal student union said in a statement, noting the a quota system would not lead to fair education, but to the stigmatization of children. However, they welcomed Prien’s separate proposal for mandatory German-language proficiency tests for all four-year-olds. The group insisted that such tests should be administered to every child, not only those from migrant families, and be linked to targeted, effective support.

Cover photo: Start of school in Leipzig, Saxony (Photo: AFP)