The president of the German Teachers Association has warned that the country's education system is being overwhelmed with migrant students, many of whom are illiterate and can barely speak the language.

"Due to immigration in 2015, the war in Ukraine and other immigration, new people are constantly coming into the system, but the system is slow to keep up because it is moving too fast," said Stefan Düll.

Düll warned that a massive burden was being placed on educators because many of the children speak little or no German whatsoever.

"After all, they don't speak Farsi or Ukrainian. How are they supposed to teach them?" he asked.

Given that around a quarter of 4th grade students in the country can't speak German, Düll said the high number of immigrant children means "the group of illiterates becoming larger."

"The higher the percentage of immigrants, the more difficult it is to motivate the class," he added.

Susanne Lin-Klitzing, the chairwoman of the German Association of Philologists, also highlighted how, "In the end, the lack of reading skills not only endangers the social participation of many people but also Germany as a whole as a business location."

School principal Norma Grube emphasized how diversity was very much not a strength when it came to the sheer number of students from different countries flooding into the system.

"Twenty-three different nations meet in the schoolyard, some of whom cannot understand each other at all and who sometimes come from hostile regions, such as Russia and Ukraine. We need a lot of parent-teacher talks, which mostly take place with interpreters. And that brings us to one of the reasons why the teaching profession has become less and less attractive: The psychological stress is enormous and it has increased significantly," she said.

Social dislocation caused by unintegrated migrant youths is also leading to huge increases in violent confrontations in schools, with more teachers facing abuse and attacks. In Berlin, police needed to be called into schools an average five times a day in 2023.