Merkel wants better educational opportunity for immigrants

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Young immigrants to Germany should receive greater educational opportunities, Chancellor Angela Merkel told a conference on integration and education in Berlin Tuesday.

"Children and young people, irrespective of origin, should have the same opportunities in education, schooling, higher education and employment," the chancellor said.

Merkel regretted that in Germany educational achievement and social origin were linked. "This link must be broken," she said.

In his message to the Muslim community in Germany at the end of Ramadan last week, German President Horst Koehler also referred to the need for increased educational opportunity among immigrants.

The president noted that all religious communities sought to provide a good future for their children and stressed that the most important prerequisite was good education.

An estimated 3.3 million people of Muslim background live in Germany, 1.8 million of them Turks.

According to official figures, there are 7.3 million foreigners living in Germany, equivalent to 8.8 per cent of the total population of 82.4 million. dpa rpm wjh