Going Back to School

Ican’t explain to children who have come to Germany as refugees why it is that they are suddenly here,” says Basel Alsayed (pictured). “But I think I know how they feel.”

A former teacher in Damascus, Alsayed left Syria to avoid being conscripted into the war, and ended up near Berlin. Having taken an 18-month refugee teacher-training course at Potsdam University, he now teaches at a primary school, where a third of the pupils are similarly displaced, hailing from countries such as Bosnia, Ghana and Syria.

“I was thrown in at the deep end,” says Alsayed, who had to master the language during his course. Suddenly, I was having to do my own homework instead of handing it out.”

“He translates when there are language problems with parents and steps in when other teachers are ill,” says head teacher Gerald Schneider.

And, according to the Bertelsmann Foundation, Germany needs more teachers like him.