Refugee children should attend school within 3 months of arriving in Germany: experts

Refugee children should attend school within three months of arriving in Germany in order to speed up integration efforts, a commission of experts said on Thursday.

The Robert Bosch-funded commission - tasked with reviewing refugee policy - said that efforts to integrate children into the classroom had to be brought in line across Germany's 16 states.

Efforts in some regions to facilitate integration by offering children so-called "welcome courses" before placing them into regular classrooms should be introduced across the country, according to Armin Laschet, the Christian Democrat politician who leads the commission.

Parents should be informed about their children's admission to schools as soon as they register their asylum bids in order to "create a foundation for the advancement of as many [refugee children] as possible," Laschet said.

About a quarter of the 1 million migrants arriving in Germany this year are minors. German schools are facing the major challenge of integrating some 155,000 children of primary and secondary school age into the education system. A further 94,000 children are at crèche and pre-school age.