We Cannot Just “Assimilate” Immigrants

KKA in discussion with Rainer Münz about diversity as an opportunity and the challenges it presents to the education system. An extract from the interview.

KKA
You were a member of the Reflection Group on the Future of the EU 2030. The Group’s report “Project Europe 2030” was recently submitted to the President of the EU Council. It makes it very clear that if Europe is to hold its own amidst international competition, half-hearted development will not suffice. [...] You have spoken of a “chance for Europe to consolidate the talent and creativity of all 27 EU Member States” in order to maintain its competitiveness...

Münz
...not only the 27 Member States, but also the citizens who live in them. The European Union has a population of approximately 500 million. Most of the people who live here are citizens of the Union. Only about 20 million are citizens of third countries. What is important in this context? Europe is a region with few natural resources. For this reason, we have to make the best possible use of the resource we have: the talent of the people who live here.

KKA
You mean talent and creativity?

Münz
Our most important resource, today and in the future, is well-educated, creative people, living in this Union as its workforce and as responsible citizens capable of shaping their own future. This is our chance. As far as I can see, it’s the only one we have.

KKA
You say that Europe should consolidate its creativity. How do you think this can be done?

Münz
There is great cultural diversity in Europe. This is not the case in China, for instance. With the exception of Tibet and Xinjiang, China is a homogeneous society. India, in comparison, is more heterogeneous. I am convinced that by harnessing heterogeneity we can arrive at certain solutions more quickly. By this I mean innovation.

KKA
What does the final report recommend with respect to education as the basis for shaping people’s lives – in the sense of “growth through knowledge”?

Münz
If we don’t have a well-trained work force in Europe, and if we don’t find new, innovative solutions, we can’t position ourselves at the upper end of the value creation chain. And then we could run into problems in financing the European social and economic model.

KKA
Austria is growing: Statistics Austria reports that by 2030 the population will have grown by 13.6 percent to nine million. Another 20 years later, in 2050, Austria’s population will number 9.52 million – an increase of 14.5 percent, which, because of the falling birth-rate, will be achieved mainly through immigration.

Münz
We can’t predict that with any accuracy today. Our population growth depends almost exclusively on immigration. This has been considerable in the last 10 years. But the situation could change. Then we wouldn’t have 9.5 million people in 2050 at all.

KKA
You recently became a member of Austria’s Council of Experts on Integration. What do the figures we have mentioned mean for Austria’s education sector, if we are to be optimally prepared for the future?

Münz
Part of the immigration is motivated by a desire for education. This is related to the fact that in Austria we have free access to universities and that these universities charge no fees for EU citizens. A change in this respect is currently under discussion, and in some faculties access is already restricted, but the general situation draws students from other EU states to Austria. In addition, we have economic immigrants seeking work and we have family reunification. This brings, in addition to Germans, people with other native languages to Austria, which raises the issues of acquiring language skills and non-German-speaking children entering the school system at various levels in the middle of the year. Our education system has to deal with this. It will have to cope with even greater ethnic, cultural and religious heterogeneity in the future. But even if no further immigration were to take place, we would still be facing this issue. After all, there are a considerable number of parents with migration backgrounds. The people who have immigrated to Austria so far have children or will have them in the future. What has changed is their origins. Formerly, people came to Austria mainly from ex-Yugoslavia and Turkey. Today our immigrants are mainly Germans and people from the new EU Member States. Turkey and the succession states of former Yugoslavia do not play any major role in new immigration today. Moreover, most immigrants today have a medium or high level of education.
 
KKA
That means, as far as the Austrian education system is concerned, that we should see diversity as an opportunity and profit from it as much as possible. But that is not so easy. How can Austria, how can Europe achieve this?

Münz
It is a challenge for the education system, and also for our country. In education, the important thing is to help children with migration backgrounds feel that they “fit in” as soon as possible. For children from non-German-speaking countries, learning the German language must be given the highest priority. Even nursery schools should be geared to this task. Having heterogeneous school classes also means that a certain view of the world that has traditionally been conveyed in history and geography lessons in Austria is not necessarily shared by immigrants and their children. Developing a more global viewpoint in the fields of history, culture and geography would benefit not only the children of immigrants. After all, we don’t want to simply assimilate our immigrants, we want to benefit from the existing heterogeneity as a valuable resource. It is important not to let the language skills that immigrants bring with them be lost in the integration process. In a globalised world economy, almost all languages and cultural knowledge can be useful.

KKA
Language diversity is considered an asset in the business world. Beatrice Achaleke, the initiator of the World Diversity Leadership Summit Europe, wants to make diversity more visible. If, in the future, we want to have good teachers in our schools who also correspond to a certain vision of diversity, then we have to make sure that such role models are allowed to become teachers. “Looking different” should not be any kind of hindrance when hiring school personnel.

Münz
That applies not only to the education system. It also applies to the media, politics, business and cultural life.

KKA
If, in Viennese schools, for example, the teaching body does not correspond to the diversity of the children attending the school, we cannot necessarily expect these children to aim for careers as teachers. Ms. Achaleke thinks that diversity in the teaching staff could even convey to children the idea: “You are not in the wrong place here; this environment belongs to all of us”.

Münz
On the one hand, there is the question of how to deal with the long-term consequences of past immigration. On the other hand, it is clear that the people coming to Austria now are different from those who came in the 1960s and 1970s. Their motivation and educational backgrounds have changed considerably. But even qualified new immigrants rarely find employment in our education system.

KKA
So what would you like to see in our education policy?

Münz
First of all, more children with migration backgrounds need to achieve a level of education that gives them qualifications for employment. And second: If we see the language skills immigrants bring with them as a resource that can be exploited in the future, this raises the question: How can we support and promote this competence, so that these native languages remain available as a resource? But of course, we must continue to teach languages such as English or Spanish, irrespective of whether we still have immigration from Great Britain and the USA or Latin America or not.

KKA
KKA is an Austrian institution that cooperates with the countries of Eastern and South Eastern Europe in the fields of education, the arts and culture. In education, for example, we are working in the area of tourism training, sustainable economic activity and entrepreneurship. How do you feel about this?

Münz
As far as our Eastern and South Eastern neighbours are concerned, KKA plays an important role as a mediator. We, ourselves, on the other hand, need to engage in an education dialogue with Finland, Sweden or France, in order to learn from successful Western education systems.

Rainer Münz is Head of Research and Development at Erste Group Bank AG and is a Senior Fellow at the Hamburg Institute of International Economics. He is an expert on issues of population and migration as well as on demographic aging and its effects on the economy and social security systems, and is a member of the Austrian Council of Experts on Integration. 
www.erstegroup.com