Advising, Accompanying, Qualifying

Education is the key to professional success. But today, many children and young people already lack the basics to acquire an education because they are behind in reading, writing, and arithmetic. These deficits can hardly be overcome later on, a fact which compromises their training and education opportunities and possibly their entire working life.

The RWE Foundation supports a project north of Osnabrück that aims to eliminate education obstacles early on. The Bildungs- und Lernberatung, counseling for education and learning, located in the north Osnabrück Land region and abbreviated as Bilnos, helps young people with learning difficulties as well as their parents and teachers. Using diagnostic tests, employees identify reading and spelling problems. Afterwards, therapy studies or remedial teaching is provided. Children experiencing difficulties in reading and writing, clap syllables, put them into motion, write down what they hear, or put the syllables together anew. This helps develop a feeling for language. If required, Bilnos can also organize adult learning buddies who read together with the children.

The credo of Bilnos is three-fold: Advise, accompany, and qualify. Every school student is to be fostered individually according to his/her learning needs. So, for instance, in addition to textbooks, there are individually tailored exercise materials. Furthermore, the students discover which learning type they are and which learning techniques will help them best progress.

The importance of fostering at-risk students early on and consistently is something the 2010 PISA Study reveals, says education researcher, Jürgen Baumert. There are enough remedial initiatives, according to the Vice President of the Max Planck Society. An online survey revealed that three-quarters of teachers have heard of this at least once. Bilnos has zeroed in on teachers and informs them about how they can react to serious learning disabilities. Elementary schools, secondary modern schools, and intermediate secondary schools can take part, just as secondary schools, vocational schools, and even kindergartens. Interested facilities are advised on an individual basis as to how they can implement the appropriate remedial initiatives with the resources available.