Cheating in German tests: Dobrindt tightens rules – Greens speak of austerity
The Interior Ministry wants stricter assessment of language exams for immigrants. The CDU/CSU welcomes the move, while the Greens accuse the minister of cutting integration courses.
Archive image · Photo: H-stt / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) wants to protect German-language tests for immigrants against fraud. A new regulation by his ministry, first reported by Bild, responds to recent cheating attempts, according to the dts news agency: participants in integration courses allegedly obtained written exam tasks with answers illegally online and filled them in in the “listening and reading” section. In future, an exam will no longer count as passed if other sections were skipped or completed insufficiently.
Greens budget spokesperson Leon Eckert told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung that Dobrindt was first halving German courses and scrapping most retake options before raising the bar. Exam fraud must be prosecuted, he said, but this was austerity at the expense of those who want to learn German. CDU/CSU interior expert Alexander Throm (CDU) welcomed the changes, saying language skills were not a formality. According to Throm, around 1.3 billion euros of tax money were spent on integration courses in 2025.