Syllable division in Nordstrasse School

However evasive the Swiss passport may be, Switzerland is currently home to one of the highest populations of immigrants in Europe.

In Zurich, 25 per cent of all school children are from other nationalities and around a third of all students speak another language other than German at home. The educational attainment of these students is cause for concern; even those among the second generation lag behind their native peers, particularly in the areas of science, math and reading.

The immigrant population of Switzerland is almost 24 percent, higher than many “classic” immigrant countries like Canada, the US and Australia.* However, Switzerland also has the lowest naturalization rate in Europe. This means that while many of these Swiss residents are second- and third-generation descendants of immigrants, they remain foreign nationals and their children are being left behind.

Meeting The Challenge

Against a background of growing numbers of middle-class families leaving inner city districts with ethnically diverse populations, the Canton of Zürich recognized that educational reform was required to reduce inequality in education, to integrate all students into schools and promote social cohesion.

In 1996, the canton initiated a school improvement project “Quality in multi-ethnic schools”(QUIMS) that would lead to the gradual development of an area-wide model of quality assurance in multi-ethnic schools as well as send a powerful political message against social segregation and for a common public primary school.

The QUIMS project aims at raising the standard of education in these schools for all students, so that they will be equally attractive to Swiss middle class parents and pupils and their non-Swiss peers. Secondly, the project strives to close the gap between the achievements of different social groups (as reported by international PISA scores). A third goal is to improve students’, parents’ and teachers’ satisfaction with the school environment.

How it works

QUIMS began ten years ago as an experimental pilot program. Today it is part of the legislative framework of the Canton of Zurich and mandatory for all public schools (grades KG to 9) who have more than 40% or more of students from immigrant backgrounds (excluding Germany, Austria and citizens of Lichtenstein) or who are not native language speakers. QUIMS offers extra financial and professional help to these schools, with the caveat that the money must be used to develop special projects in line with the aims of the programm based on local needs.

All QUIMS schools customize local programming based on three obligatory fields of action, including:

• Language Support: including promoting literacy for all students using language competence assessments, creative work for oral and written proficiency as well as support for integrated “native language and culture lessons;”
• Attainment Support: Using a variety of learning methods to support cooperative learning, problem solving and to increase the involvement of parents and mentors; and
• Integration Support: Building a shared culture of appreciation, respect and understanding through the use of intercultural mediators to liaise between parents and teachers; and the establishment of parent councils.

QUIMS schools are well-supported to ease the transition to the new quality standards. They receive well-structured schemas for school development and additional support from the educational administration, including advisory services, professional development, materials, handbooks, local networks and evaluation.

Before the QUIMS measures can be implemented, a dedicated QUIMS officer is selected to receive training through a special certification process conducted by the Zurich University of Teacher Education. The selected QUIMS officer prepares and coordinates the QUIMS activities for the entire teaching staff.

Schools that are participating for the first time receive introductory training sessions as well as regular advice and updates during their first two years. Teachers receive ongoing QUIMS training and the opportunity to network and learn from the experience of other schools.

Success

The QUIMS approach focuses on the processes of teaching and learning, rather than performance data. Like other good integration practices, it includes a two way dynamic that addresses local needs and moves on to benefit the larger community.

QUIMS starts by dealing with teachers’ concrete requirements and problems in the classroom and moves on to sensitize the teachers to issues of ethnic and social inequality and stereotyping.

The QUIMS program reaches beyond the challenges of linguistic and cultural diversity in the classroom, to look at how power structures in the overall organization of schooling can contribute to discrimination. It starts to analyze the structural barriers, for example, that might prevent a child from an immigrant background with a good school performance from attending a secondary school for higher achievers. QUIMS demonstrates the potential to address broad systemic change in Zurich’s educational system and in the community-at-large. That is an important accomplishment.

Since its’ start as a pilot project in a few Zurich high schools in 1996, the QUIMS program is now available in almost 100 schools in the Canton of Zurich, where it has been scaled up into law since 2006. In 2008, it was nominated for the prestigious Carl Bertelsmann Prize for ‘Education and Integration.’

*Please note the important distinction between “immigrant” populations in Switzerland which include non-naturalized foreign residents of the 2nd and 3rd generation and the “foreign-born” category used for Canada, US and Australia. In 2006, Canada’s population of foreign-born was 19.8%; the United States of America (12.5%); Australia (22.2%). However, 85% of Canada’s foreign-born population in 2006 had also been naturalized (attained citizenship). Source: Canada 2006 Census.

Watch the Webinar Recording!

Download the Integration Through Education PowerPoint Presentation (PDF)

JWatch a 60-minute discussion on integration strategies that generate equal opportunities in education and accelerate improved academic outcomes for immigrant and second-generation students.

Learn about The Toronto District School Board (TDSB), the 2008 winner of the international Carl Bertelsmann Prize, and their grade-A success in responding to the challenge of migration and demographic changes in the culturally-diverse city of Toronto, Canada. Moving beyond traditional instructional models of second-language learning, discover how a public school system can partner with settlement agencies, community organizations, and government partners to transform diversity into an educational opportunity.

From Zurich, learn how Quality in Multicultural Schools (QUIMS) tackled inequality of education at school with a flexible, multi-strand approach that included the student’s most important allies –her teachers and parents. Language support, parent councils, intercultural mediators, and systematic additional teacher training all combined to transform a pilot school program in the Canton of Zurich into core school legislation since 2008.

Speakers

Lloyd McKell
Executive Officer, Student and Community Equity,
Toronto District School Board

Lloyd McKell has been an educator with the Toronto District School Board for over thirty years where he currently holds the position of Executive Officer for Student and Community Equity. In this position, he is responsible for providing leadership and direction for the implementation of policies and practices which promote inclusive schools and which reflect the Board’s Equity policies. In 2008, the Toronto District School Board received the Carl Bertelsmann International award for excellence in Equity and Inclusion. Lloyd McKell has been an active contributor to many initiatives in the African Canadian community of Toronto for many years and in 2005, Lloyd received the African Canadian Achievement Award for excellence in the field of education.

Selin Öndül
Quality in Multicultural Schools (QUIMS) Programme Officer
Ministry of Education, Canton Zurich

Selin Öndül is a programme officer of QUIMS in Zurich. She coaches and consults schools that take part in the programm. She also contributes to further development of the programme. Coming form a multicultural family she migrated to Switzerland in 1997. She has a MSc in educational psychology from Zurich, as well as a BSc in teaching mathematics from Istanbul. She worked for 8 years in public schools in Zurich teaching Turkish to children of immigrant families. She has been active in several projects related with migration in Switzerland. Before taking her present position in the Ministry of Education, she worked for the Red Cross in Canton Zurich and coordinated an exchange programm aiming a better integration of migrant children.

Watch the Webinar Recording!

Download the Municipal Action on Integration Powerpoint Presentation (PDF)

Join Cities of Migration and Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees (GCIR) on January 19 for a 60-minute discussion on integration strategies for municipal leaders.

Learn about the Chicago Community Trust’s partnership with municipal governments in the larger Chicago region. The Chicago Community Trust funding model is designed to address the needs of growing newcomer communities while securing wider investment from community and private sector stakeholders that can help build local capacity for the long-term..

From the the City of Turin, you will learn about The Gate Project at Porta Palazzo, an urban regeneration initiative that uses a flexible, participatory approach to community development. With a wide platform of public and private participation and support, the city of Turin has transformed The Gate from a pilot project into a local development agency that integrates social inclusion, poverty and crime reduction and sustainable urban renewal

Speakers

Daranee Petsod
Executive Director, Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees (GCIR)

Daranee Petsod has worked on social and economic justice issues for the past 22 years. Prior to joining GCIR in December 1998, Daranee was a consultant working with foundations and nonprofits on program planning and communications. She previously served as interim executive director and development director for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and was a program officer for the Sophia Fund and the Field Foundation of Illinois, Inc. She has also worked as a policy analyst for the United Way, a social worker at a child-welfare agency, and an outreach worker for a refugee women’s services program. Daranee’s areas of expertise include immigrant integration, immigrant and refugee grantmaking, and building the capacity of immigrant-based organizations. Daranee has authored and co-authored a number of publications, most recently Investing in Our Communities: Strategies for Immigrant Integration in 2006. Other publications include: Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian Communities in the San Francisco Bay Area: An Introduction for Grantmakers (2004), Newcomers in the American Workplace: Improving Employment Outcomes for Low-Wage Immigrants and Refugees (2003), and Moving from Welfare to Work: The Experiences of Refugee Women in Illinois (1999). Daranee holds a master’s degree in social policy from the University of Chicago.

Clare O’Shea
Senior Planner, Village of Mount Prospect, Chicago

Clare O’Shea is the Senior Planner for the Village of Mount Prospect, Illinois. In her current role, Ms. O’Shea is responsible for long range planning, grant writing, and economic development activities. Ms. O’Shea recently served as the project leader of implementation and construction of Mount Prospect’s Community Connections Center. The Center benefits the community by bringing services to a previously underserved population and is the result of multiple grants awarded to the Village of Mount Prospect from the Chicago Community Trust. The Center opened in August 2009 in collaboration with the Mount Prospect Public Library, District 214 Community Education, Northwest Community Hospital, and Community Consolidated School District 59.

Luca Cianfriglia
Director, “The Gate Project”

Since 2006, Luca has been the director of “The Gate Project”: public- private local development agency born to create, develop and manage specific regeneration projects on the area of Porta Palazzo in Turin. Luca has also been the director of “Parco Dora Committee”: public- private local development agency born to follow the physical and social transformation from industrial area to a new district (13.000 new inhabitant, 1 milion sqm) in Turin. Since 2007 he has been the collaborator with the Deputy Mayor of immigrants integration and urban regeneration policies of the Municipality of Turin. He has also been the project advisor for public organizations in the field of integration, urban regeneration, innovative reusing of abandoned areas, and empowerment of the local communities.