"Law and Status" Working Group (person responsible: Dr. Uwe Muuss, International Office)

The "Law and Status" Working Group met for the first time in Nov. 2015. It particularly deals with issues relating to the law on residency and status that the refugees have after their arrival and during their stay in Germany. These questions are directly relevant to whether they have options for being admitted to a degree programme, getting a job or taking on work. At the same time, the Working Group collaborates and liaises with representatives of the city's administration in order to obtain an estimation as to how many refugees are (and will be) coming to Göttingen and determine their academic, occupational and language qualifications. Building on this, the aim is to derive scenarios that allow the stakeholders to offer sensible further qualification measures, particularly on the area of language proficiency. The current status is that the city has provided very reliable estimates on this through a status audit; on a broad scale, the refugees are receiving beginner language courses; from there, the more advanced language courses can be offered by the University for those who would be eligible to study. A corresponding grant application for funds to implement the measure within the "Integra" programme has been submitted to the DAAD.