Wardah Al-Allawee

Interview with the LAT project ILA-bS (Nada Al-Allawee from Arnstädter Bildungswerk e.V.)

It stays in the family

When Wardah Al-Allawee came to Germany from Iraq in April 2022, her sister Nada Al-Allawee helped her take her first steps.

After her time in the initial reception centre in Suhl, Nada Al-Allawee helped her move to shared accommodation in Arnstadt to be close to her family. Within a month, she found a council flat in Ilmenau with the support of the BLEIBdran+ project at the Ilm district social welfare office. Nada Al-Allawee works as a counsellor in the Ila-bS project and accepted her sister into the LAT project in September 2022.

Then it has to go without a language course

Nada Al-Allawee initially helped her sister find an integration course. However, the adult education centre in Ilmenau no longer had any places available on a suitable integration course, so Wardah Al-Allawee only got a place on a literacy course. However, the qualified English teacher was underchallenged in the course. Learning progress was not possible and Wardah Al-Allawee dropped out of the course after a week.

She and her family then learnt German on their own and achieved language level B1 within a few months. She was able to take the exam in Erfurt.

After having her certificates translated, Wardah Al-Allawee also wanted to have her qualifications recognised. However, as the teaching profession is regulated, she first has to work and then take an exam for full recognition.

"She was such a good teacher, always hardworking. When she was still in Iraq during the coronavirus pandemic, she made YouTube videos for her pupils," says Nada All-Allaweh about her sister.

Wardah Al-Allawee also passed the B2 exam without any problems. The course at the VHS was arranged for her by an employee at the job centre, with whom Ms Al-Allawee was able to establish a very good contact through her project work.

When several projects go hand in hand

Nada Al-Allawee would no longer have been able to accompany her sister through the ILA-bS project to continue her job search after the BAMF decision and the associated change of legal status to SGB II. Fortunately, she was able to continue supporting her sister through the ThINKA project, as she also works as a counsellor in this project. One of the tasks of the Thuringian Initiative for Integration, Sustainability, Cooperation and Activation (ThiNKA) is to improve the professional and social integration of disadvantaged people.

Together they created CVs and job applications. In addition to her trained profession as an English teacher, Wardah Al-Allawee could also imagine working as a counsellor like her sister. However, there were no vacancies in this field.

Nada Al-Allawee also accompanied her sister to the city council. Unlike Arnstadt, Ilmenau does not want to recognise the marriage certificate. As both spouses will soon be working, this naturally also means a considerable financial disadvantage due to the tax classification.

The employer as the driving force

Wardah Al-Allawee owes her current job more to a lucky coincidence. When Wardah Al-Allawee enrolled her daughter at the regular school in Ilmenau, the headmaster immediately asked about her excellent English and German language skills after a few conversations. He encouraged her to send an application directly to the education authority as a teaching assistant and also helped her to register via the careers portal.

She has now been working at the school as a teaching assistant since August 2024 and is working towards the exam. The pedagogical assistant is a new personnel category created by the Thuringian Ministry of Education in 2023 to distribute pedagogical tasks at schools more effectively. These positions are intended to benefit schools with a high proportion of migrant pupils in particular.

"I would like her to be able to have her certificates recognised so that she can work as a teacher. And she would also like to work full-time at the school, that would be the ideal," says Wardah Al-Allawee.

Nada Al-Alawee has also included her brother-in-law and niece in the IlA-bs project to help them take their first steps. For them, too, this meant looking for language courses and then planning what to do next. As Wardah Al-Allawee's husband did not want to wait so long for a job, the engineer applied for a job as a bus driver. Ms Stolle from the job centre worked with him to find a school for the additional qualification for the bus driver's licence.

Nada Al-Allawee hopes that employers will be patient and make a little more effort. Even if your residence status is uncertain or you have not yet been granted a work permit, you can apply for a work permit from the foreigners authority with an employer at your side.

"There are employers who go to great lengths to take on interns and help them with the language. But there are still too many who don't," says Nada Al-Allawee. Language certificates are not always meaningful either. Sometimes language skills are better than certified, sometimes worse - at least an invitation to an interview would show whether a position is suitable.

Interview with Heiko Müller, headmaster of the "Geschwister Scholl" state school in Ilmenau

A first contact with positive consequences

Heiko Müller is head teacher at the "Geschwister Scholl" state school in Ilmenau. The first contact with Wardah Al-Allawee was when she enrolled her daughter at the school. Mr Müller vividly remembers the first meetings. At first we communicated in English, as there was no interpreter available at the time. The daughter was accepted at the school and contact with Mrs Al-Allawee and her family continued over the following months. "I was surprised how quickly the whole family learnt German during this time. By our third conversation, we were already able to speak fluently in German. That was great!"

During the interviews, Mr Müller found out that Mrs Al-Allawee used to be an English teacher and asked whether she would be interested in working at the school. As her dream was to be able to work as a teacher in Germany one day, she was immediately enthusiastic about the offer. Mr Müller suggested employing Wardah Al-Allawee through the school's programme for teaching assistants to get her started in the school system. "Of course, it was a big adjustment for Mrs Al-Allawee to understand the German school system, which works very differently to the school system in Iraq. She also had to improve her language skills."

Challenges and successes: the path to becoming a teaching assistant

The application process was not easy for Mrs Al-Allawee. One hurdle, for example, was registering on the Free State's career portal for a person with a migration background. Together, they then managed to find their way around the system. Mr Müller registered her on the portal and Ms Al-Alawee was then able to upload all the necessary documents, certificates and evidence with the help of her sister. The efforts paid off when Mrs Al-Allawee was invited to an interview at the education authority. The interview was successful and Ms Al-Allawee was able to prevail among the four applicants. She was able to take up her position at the Geschwister Scholl regular school in August 2024. Ms Al-Allawee and another teaching assistant from Georgia each work half-time at the school. They support the subject lessons and supervise Year 5 and 6 pupils in their additional tasks in the workshop lessons. The workshop lessons are a very good supplement to the subject lessons and serve as an additional practice session to consolidate the subject matter learnt.

Mr Müller explains that the work is of course not always easy: "Dealing with less motivated pupils is still a major challenge, as the teaching assistants do not award grades and some pupils are therefore unmotivated and disrupt the practice phase. The demands of a mainstream school with its diversity of pupils are enormous. In contrast to a grammar school, where pupils are often more motivated, mainstream schools have to deal with a wide range of different requirements. We can't turn anyone away here." So far, Mrs Al-Allawee has shown perseverance and a great willingness to learn in all difficult situations.

Mr Müller was positive about the entire process and Ms Al-Allawee's rapid adaptation to the circumstances: "I was really pleased with how quickly she learned German and how committed she is despite the initial difficulties," he summarised.

Career change at a mainstream school: a big win for both sides

The "Geschwister Scholl" mainstream school in Ilmenau already has a lot of experience with career changers from abroad. Since the coronavirus catch-up programme, there has been a good exchange with international students from TU Ilmenau, who offer afternoon working groups to support individual subjects. "This is a great help, especially for technical and scientific subjects such as maths, but also for English, and there have already been some great success stories. A former student from India ran an English club here and is now employed by us as an English teacher. Another colleague from Iraq is now working here as a maths teacher. As a school, we are already further ahead than others in this respect," reports head teacher Heiko Müller. There are now four lateral entrants with migration experience working as permanent teachers at the school. In this respect, Mr Müller would like to see structural improvements. There needs to be more opportunities for teachers with a migration background to gain additional qualifications. And it is important that there are sufficient opportunities to improve language skills. These must then also be utilised in everyday life. Pedagogical assistance is a good way for prospective teachers to be introduced to teaching.

Her Müller hopes that Wardah Al-Allawee will continue to have a professional future at the school: "My wish, of course, is that we can manage this and that Mrs Al-Allawee can continue to work here at the school as an English teacher. It's not easy and it's hard work at a mainstream school, but we support her wherever we can."