IF YOU CAN'T SPEAK GERMAN YOU HAVE TO PAY
Kindergarten is to cost more if children are unable to speak German
By Peter Henkel
Bad Wurzach, Germany - In what may turn out to be a controversial move, this small town in Germany's south-west has decided to bring pressure on foreign residents to teach their children German at an earlier age. Children with a poor command of German are only to be provided with a place in municipal kindergartens if they attend a German language course and their parents pay an extra 20 marks (12 dollars) a month for them.
"More and more children are unable to speak a word of German," complained Ottmar Bendel, a council official in the town, which is near Ravensburg. He feels the growing number of Turkish-language TV channels is partly to blame.
When there were fewer of them, children of Turkish parents often learnt German by default, as it were, by watching German TV, he said. Today, their parents often just assume their children will learn German in kindergarten or at school.
What they fail to realise, Bendel added, is that if their children cannot speak good German they are going to fall behind the others even at kindergarten.
In Wurzach, population 14,000, foreigners make up 20 per cent of the population and their children account for one child in three at kindergarten. And the Turkish community is by far the largest, accounting for roughly 70 per cent of foreign residents.
At the end of July the 29-member town council decided almost unanimously (with one abstention) that all children (German children included, at least in theory) must take a language test if there were any doubts as to their command of the language.
If their command of German is found to be inadequate they will have to attend language courses. What is more, their monthly kindergarten fee will be increased by 20 marks. If parents refused to pay, their children will be refused a place in Wurzach's five municipal and church kindergartens.
The question of discriminiation had not yet arisen in the debate, Bendel said, although mention had been made of the extra cost. But the move, which was based on financial considerations, was unanimously backed by the elected council of foreign residents.
Baden-Wuerttemberg state no longer foots 30 per cent of the bill. Lower grants are made on a slightly different basis. Wurzach applied in vain for additional funds, arguing that children who did not speak German were in need of special teaching.
When this application was turned down by the state, Wurzach hit on the idea of making German courses compulsory and making parents pay toward them. The levy is intended to cover two-thirds of the wage bill for the language courses. Courses run for 12 months. If a child fails to show any clear improvement, it must attend the following year's course.
Turkish parents have now objected, voicing fears that there might be discrimination against foreign residents' children in general and against Turkish children in particular by way of particularly stringent test standards.
What is more, it has been argued, municipal examiners will be tempted to make attendance compulsory for as many children as possible as a source of revenue. Some mothers have even announced that in the circumstances they will not be applying for a place at kindergarten for their children.