German Teacher: 80-90% Immigrant Pupils in Her School

A German teacher describes the 'absolute hell' of her classrooms

Germany recorded around 27,500 violent crimes in schools last year, a 27% increase compared to 2022. These figures come from official administration, not a pamphlet. But the detail sparking debate is another: the testimony of a named teacher who has decided to speak openly about what happens inside her class.

Birgit Ebel, a secondary school teacher, described in the German magazine Focus an 'absolute hell.' In her school, between 80% and 90% of students are of immigrant origin, coming from countries such as Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Algeria, Bosnia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, or Pakistan, as well as Russia and North Africa. Her account includes fights, ethnic conflicts that students bring from their countries of origin—Turks against Kurds, Jovenlandeses against Yazidis—and a sensual language that, she claims, is the usual way to insult teachers.

What Birgit Ebel reports in her interview

According to her version, the carrying of knives and American-style fists was common among students and was even considered a mark of prestige. She describes threats with sensual insults, students who told her to shut up, and others who threatened to assault her for 'insulting Sarracin,' including an Albanian student who barely spoke German. She states that antisemitism worsened after October 7, when she expressed support for Israel.

When she reported the problem to academic authorities, the response she received, she claims, was the reverse accusation: suspending a student was deemed 'racist', a card also played by some families. She filed a incivil complaint for the threats. The investigation was closed.

A precaution is necessary before proceeding: this is the professional experience of one teacher in a specific center, with a very specific demographic composition, and she herself projects it onto the entire system. This leap, from the classroom to the nation, is precisely what those who argue that the problem is not the origin of students but the proportion, concentration, and lack of resources are debating.

How much violence is there in German schools?

Official data show a quantifiable deterioration. The around 27,500 violent crimes recorded in schools—knife attacks and assaults—equivalent to a 27% increase compared to 2022. In Berlin, an average of five police operations per school day is registered. This is only pure violence; daily bullying, the drip that wears down a faculty month by month, does not appear in these statistics.

This picture is often linked to Germany's decline in the international PISA report. The connection sounds good in a headline, but those who formulate it rarely accompany the statistical series that proves it. Correlation is not causation, and in education, these are confused with amazing ease.

The German system has three doors; the Spanish, one

There is an element that usually remains outside the spotlight and explains why the German diagnosis cannot be transplanted to Spain as is. As one participant in the debate summarizes, upon finishing primary school, the country sorts its students into three differentiated pathways: the Gymnasium, where the elite who will go to university ends up; vocational institutes, where a trade is learned, and social guarantee centers. The system provides opportunities on an equal basis, but those who do not take advantage of them are directed to another door.

In Spain, however, according to this same account, an inclusive model prevails: students who do not want to study remain in the classroom until age 16, and with them, the teacher and the rest of the class. This German escape valve moderates conflict in secondary school, although it does not eliminate it. In exchange, segregation by pathway arrives earlier and marks lifelong trajectories.

Who is to blame: the one who arrives, the one who teaches, or the one who votes?

As soon as this issue opens, three currents appear. One argues that mass immigration is the direct cause of the deterioration and that pointing it out has become a taboo for too long. Another defends that the problem is one of integration, school concentration, and public management: the same students, with a different distribution and resources, would yield different results. And a third looks inward and shares responsibility between the teaching staff and the policies that pushed the process, with an uncomfortable argument: those who defended these policies for years and now complain about their consequences should explain what changes.

This is added to the flight effect described by several participants. Families with resources—including atheists and left-wingers, which disproves any simple scheme—seek state-funded or private centers where the proportion of immigrant students is lower, which concentrates the problem in public schools and accelerates their degradation. School segregation is not produced by one side; it is the sum of individual decisions by those who can choose.

The nuance that bothers both sides

And there is a point that neither of the two narratives digests well: according to several participants, the origin of students does not head the problem by itself. Romanians, Chinese, Russians, Ukrainians, or Latin Americans do not respond to the same pattern, and some report that established immigrant families are the first to suffer the degradation of the neighborhood and school they take their children to, and that Germans of Turkish origin with decades in the country observe the situation with the same alarm as a native neighbor.

This detail breaks both trenches. To those who blame origin, the explanation is excessive. To those who deny any relationship between immigration and school results, one is lacking.

Can an educational system be sustained with proportions of immigrant students above 80% without quality suffering? Or is the failure that no one has managed to design the pathways, resources, and staff so that it does not suffer?