For Turkish journalist Müge Tuzcu Karakoc, an intensive integration course was key to feeling at home in Germany. After seven years in the country, she only began to feel accepted when she joined daily German lessons in 2024 alongside Ukrainians, Syrians and Iranians. “We learned more than just a language,” she told DW, saying the course helped her rejoin everyday life and believe she had a future in Germany.
Now the Interior Ministry has announced it will stop approving state funding applications for integration courses for many groups of migrants until further notice. Affected people include refugees from Ukraine, asylum-seekers, those with “tolerated” status and EU citizens. Unless a job centre, immigration office or social welfare office formally orders a person to attend, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) will not pay the roughly €1,600 course fee — meaning individuals would have to cover the cost themselves.
Critics say the move risks reversing progress. Tuzcu Karakoc described the decision as a backward step: if newcomers cannot join everyday life, she warned, social problems will grow rather than disappear. Freelance teacher Petra Martin, who has run courses since late 2022, said the decision was surprising and dangerous. Without sufficient language skills, she warned, newcomers are left with little chance to integrate and may be pushed into underpaid or insecure work.
Integration courses typically run about 700 hours and combine German language teaching with lessons on Germany’s legal system, history, culture and social life. The model has been refined over roughly two decades and nearly four million people have taken part. Organisers and education providers say the courses are also a crucial pipeline for filling jobs in hospitals, elderly care and the public sector. The Adult Education Association (Volkshochschulverband, DVV) estimates that the funding cuts could affect around 130,000 jobs, and lower enrolment after the freeze has already forced many classes to be cancelled.
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt of the Christian Social Union (CSU) defended the decision as a response to tighter budgets and reduced migration numbers. The ministry told DW it aims to “reduce false incentives and set priorities,” focusing support on people who are likely to remain in Germany long-term. Going forward, officials say, courses will be more targeted so that language help goes primarily to those with prospects of permanent residence.
That rationale is disputed within the government. Natalia Pawlik, the federal Commissioner for Migration, Refugees and Integration and a member of the SPD, said the move runs counter to the coalition’s pledge to invest more in integration. She called it counterproductive, arguing that language proficiency is a prerequisite for integration rather than a result of it. Employers and employment agencies, she noted, often require at least B1-level German to place workers; withdrawing funding, she warned, will create obstacles, extend dependence on social benefits and hurt migrants’ ability to become economically independent, with negative medium- and long-term effects on the German economy.
This article first appeared in German. DW also provides free German language courses.