CONTEXT

Immigration to Portugal started to increase significantly in the late 90s and early 2000s, increasing from 1.3% in 1991 to 8.3% in 2015 (Eurostat, 2016). In 2017, the percentage was 13,9%, with a total number of 480.300 residents with legal status (SEF/GEPF, 2018). The countries of origin with the highest percentages are Brazil (21,9%), followed by Cape Verde (7,2%), Romania (6,4%), Ukraine (6,1), UK (5,5%), China (5,5%), France (4,1%), Italy (4,1%), Angola (3,9%), Guinea (3,4%) and a percentage of 3,4 % for other nationalities (SEF/GEPF, 2018).

The Governing of Education is under the Ministry of Education (MoE), which has the mission to conceptualize, conduct, execute and evaluate national policy concerning the education system, from preschool education, to basic and secondary education, as well as extra-school education . Other organizations under government action or outside this scope play an important role in promoting formal and non-formal education.

There are laws that try to support the integration of migrants, but are not specific to immigrant children’s education: Decree-law nº 6/2001 of 18th January, which ensures basic education for all, no matter their nationality, and the integration of the curriculum of education for citizenship; implementing order nº7/2006 which defends the recognition and respect for the individual needs of all students and ensures the support to learn the Portuguese language; in July 2005, the Guidance Document for Portuguese as Non-Mother Tongue was published.

Concerning the migrant population, the High Commissioner for Migration (HCM) is articulated with the MoE in the field of education. The HCM is a governmental institute, dependent of the Council of Ministers, which promotes public policies that favour social inclusion, equal opportunities and diversity appreciation. Worthy of note, at this level, is the Strategic Plan for Migrations, aimed at fostering answers to address complex problems, towards the development of a modern and fair migration policy. As mentioned on the website of the HCM: “The High Commission for Migration, Public Institution, directly dependent of the Presidency of the Ministers Council, has the mission of collaborating on determining, executing and assessing the public, transversal and sectorial policies concerning migrations, which are relevant for the integration of migrants in the national, international and Portuguese-speaking contexts, for the integration of the immigrants and ethnic groups – in particular, the Roma Communities – and for managing and valuing the diversity between cultures, ethnicities and religions” . Under the aforementioned strategic plan, there are specific measures to promote intercultural education and to address school abandonment.

Under the promotion of social inclusion of children and young people from vulnerable socio-economic contexts, there was the creation of the Programa Escolhas [Choices Program], a national governmental program with the central mission of promoting social inclusion of children and young people from vulnerable socio-economic contexts, including migrant children and young people.

Educational policies for immigrant children

Under the promotion of social inclusion of children and young people from vulnerable socio-economic contexts, there was the creation of the Programa Escolhas [Choices Program], a national governmental program with the central mission of promoting social inclusion of children and young people from vulnerable socio-economic contexts. This is done by involving children and young people in after school programs to enhance their engagement in informal educational activities, aiming to also promote school engagement among at-risk children and young people, as well as promote several activities, such as computer learning, language learning, sports, etc. The Choices Program is applied in vulnerable socio-economic contexts, not exactly schools, but in connection with schools that serve those contexts. Students in many schools from those contexts attend this program.

An ‘Intercultural School Stamp’ policy initiative has been developed since 2012, involving the General-Directorate of Education (MoE), the HCM and the Aga Khan Foundation, and it evaluates schools and assigns them to different levels, depending on how school practices 1) promote the recognition and value of diversity as an opportunity and source of learning for all; and 2) implement specific strategies/actions to promote interculturality, equal opportunity and educational success for all. This framework also aims to provide means for schools to critically examine and improve their practices toward interculturality, and to motivate schools to share knowledge and experience (Szelei et al, 2019: 179).

Another joint initiative to promote Intercultural Education in Schools is the Intercultural Schools Network.

The Intercultural Schools Network is a program also promoted by the HCM,I.P., the General-Directorate of Education and the Aga Khan Foundation, to support the capacity building of schools and the sharing of good practices in intercultural education. The Network is composed of schools committed to promoting the reception, integration and educational success of all children and young people, regardless of their cultural or national origins, and to promoting a culture and practice of opening up to difference and establishing positive interactions between students and other members of the educational community from different cultures.

Participation in the network means to integrate intercultural education practices in the School Education Project and the Annual Plan of Activities in the following areas: culture of the School; Curriculum (content, resources and didactic activities) and Community engagement; to provide intercultural training sessions to different actors of the educational community; to participate in mentoring, supervision and monitoring activities and to share practices and resources using a collaborative platform. In 2017-2019 the network involved around 120 schools.

CONTEXT

The last project year did not bring about any major developments in the regulations concerning migrant education. Therefore the main policy priorities identified and discussed during the 2018 NRT also remain relevant in 2019. These were: 1) Monitoring the distribution, up-take and financing of support measures as well as monitoring the educational achievements of migrant students 2) Designing tools and procedures for the orientation and integration of both students and parents in the school community 3) Ensuring adequate psycho-social support, especially in dedicated counselling centers 4) Fine-tuning school placement procedures 5) Ensuring synergy and cohesion in all activities relating to migrant student education (for an elaborated analysis please refer to the 2018 synthesis paper).

The NRT attendees reported, however, substantial progress on the practice level relating to orientation and integration procedures. Major municipalities invested in creating or adapting welcoming brochures for migrant students and their families. These offer not only basic information on the Polish education system, but strive to explain the specificities of the Polish school and after-school-care culture. Also, some of the big cities, being major centers of migrant influx, addressed the need for orientation procedures by launching community-based tutoring and mentoring programs for migrant students/families (sometimes, as is the case in Gdansk, involving peer-to-peer student support). This form of assistance is gaining recognition among major municipalities in Poland, however it does not seem to be very feasible in smaller towns or rural regions. Even the large cities face major limitations in terms of financial resources and are forced to rely on volunteer work.

The additional stress put on the education system by two factors: 1) education system reform (changing the stages of education from a 6+3+3 system to an 8+4 system) and 2) the massive teachers’ strike in the spring of 2019 also translated into additional stress for migrant students and their families. As the system reform inevitably resulted in an accumulation of two years of student cohorts starting secondary school in 2019, resources had to be allocated for an increased number of mainstream classes, which might have constrained the ability to organise classes due to limited classroom space and staffing availability. Furthermore, a much higher number of graduates in the recruitment procedures for secondary schools and the higher level of competition connected to this affected all students irrespective of their background. However – as has been reported and can be reasonably be assumed – it was an even more challenging for migrant students (who tend to have both lower final exam scores and less know-how about navigating the recruitment system). It was therefore suggested that migrant students and their families should be supported by mentors/advisors in choosing optimal recruitment strategies and in navigating the school application process.

It was also indicated during the meeting that Poland may be dealing with the issue of unaccompanied minors among the Ukrainian migrant population on a greater scale than previously acknowledged. Teenagers, attending upper secondary schools, who use available boarding possibilities, are being periodically left without supervision. The extent of this phenomenon, however, is not known and would need to be more closely investigated.

CONTEXT

In October 2018, the government launched a new integration strategy. Ministry of Education and Research is responsible for primary and secondary school, upper secondary and tertiary vocational education, adult education and skills, and from January 2018 also integration, and in the new integration strategy, education is strongly emphasized. The strategy document is called “Integration through knowledge”. In Chapter 1, Education and Qualification, it sets clear goals and it offers measures. It mentions both the content and organization of the education, skills assessment and special measures are mentioned for newly arrived students.

In Norway, the municipalities are responsible for primary schools and the counties are responsible for upper secondary education, and all pupils who have left primary school, 16 years old, are entitled to upper secondary education. But even though all students have the right to upper secondary education, many drop out. And the group that has the most problems, is youth who come to Norway with little schooling from their home country. The Integration strategy addresses this, and proposes measures so that young people over the age of 16 can receive more primary education. To achieve this, municipalities and counties must work together, and the legislation has been amended to facilitate such cooperation.

NAFO has school owner networks, one for municipalities and one for counties. All county municipalities, all major cities and many smaller municipalities has participated in the networks. At the NTR in 2019, the two networks met in Tromsø.

CONTEXT

In 2018, the Dutch Education Inspectorate published its report that in contrast to almost all other countries in Europe, the performance of Dutch pupils has been falling for decades (State of Education 2018). Even more worrying were the figures that showed increasing inequality based on migration and socio-economic status: children with higher educated parents increasingly performed better than those whose parents were lower educated. The same was found for children with parents with a migrant background. The Inspection report paid little attention to the role of language. If language was mentioned at all, it was to point out that migrant children may have a language deficiency or language delay because they do not speak Dutch. Dutch as a second language classes are generally provided only for Newly Arrived Migrants (NAMS) and only during their first year in the Netherlands. After this, all children, including those who were born here but have a different home language than Dutch, are expected to speak Dutch at the same level as native Dutch speakers and to leave their mother tongues behind.

Currently, more than half of school children in the capital city of Amsterdam speak a different language besides Dutch. Schools therefore need to prepare their teachers to close the gap between ‘native’ Dutch speaking and multilingual children. However, the dominant attitude towards multilingualism in Dutch education can be summarized as a policy which at best ignores, at worst prohibits and sometimes even punishes children for using other languages than Dutch in schools (Le Pichon & Kambel 2017). It is a result of the (mistaken) belief that it is the best way for children to learn Dutch. Yet, research has shown for a long time that the opposite is true: making use of children’s home languages will not only make them feel more at home at school and therefore helps in their integration into society, but also has significant benefits to their learning process (Collier & Thomas 2017, NESET II 2017).

In 2017, the Ministry of Education in the Netherlands distributed a booklet to all primary schools encouraging mother tongue use for teaching NAMS.  This is certainly a positive step, but simply sending booklets to schools will not change ingrained practices. Teachers and policy makers need practical examples. At the last NRT (July 2018), participants stated that good multilingual teaching practices were hard to find. This is why it was decided to focus on good examples of multilingual teaching practices for the NRT 2019.

CONTEXT

The context is provided on the basis of the conclusions of the Access to Educational Report for refugee and migrant children in Europe, carried out jointly by Unhcr, Unicef ​​and Iom.

A greater effort is needed to ensure that all minors who are migrants, refugees and asylum seekers have access to quality education and guarantees for the continuation of their academic career. Lack of school space, inadequately trained teachers, language obstacles and limited access to psychosocial support and limited recovery classes are the main barriers that children with migrant background encounter in accessing education in Europe.

To help states respond to these challenges and the lack of crucial data, the publication provides examples of good and promising practices for education in Europe and a number of recommendations. These include the request to strengthen the link between schools and other important public services, such as health and child protection, to ensure that barriers for school enrollment and factors that contribute to early school leaving are overcome. Agencies also ask states to extend efforts and further invest in both national and regional levels to collect standardized and harmonized quality data on refugee children, asylum seekers and educational migrants, to guide development and distribution policies.

In Italy, National education statistics distinguish only between Italian and non-Italian citizens. In the 2016-2017 school year, there were 634,070 non-Italian children registered in Italian schools (9.5% of the total number of students enrolled). 46% of non-Italian children were enrolled in primary school, 26% in lower secondary school and 29% in upper secondary school. There are no data on pre-primary education. Among all non-Italian children in the school system, 77% (487,748) were non-European citizens. Among the refugee and migrant adolescents, who responded to the survey on education conducted at the end of 2017 on the UNICEF U-Report on the Move platform, 49% attended only Italian language classes, while only 30% attended regular classes, with a big difference between the zones. According to a more recent survey, 86% of respondents stated that they wanted to access training courses. However, very few of them have had access to these opportunities.

CONTEXT

Ireland’s experience of migration has changed radically over the past two decades, with a shift from net emigration to net immigration. The 2016 Census indicates that 535,475 non-Irish nationals, from 200 different nationalities, are now living in Ireland. Of those counted in the 2016 Census, children aged 0 to 14 years comprised 12.5% of the non-Irish nationals counted. The same census also showed that 612,018 Irish residents spoke a language other than Irish or English at home, an increase of 19.1% since 2011. Of these, 363,715 were non-Irish nationals and the top languages spoken were Polish (113,225), Lithuanian (30,502) Romanian (26,645) and Portuguese (16,737).

For the 2019 SIRIUS National Roundtable, we centred our discussion on the topic of linguistic diversity in Irish classrooms. This Roundtable focused on the experiences of bilingual children, the challenges they and teachers face, and the resources available to teachers in Ireland. At present, mainstream primary education system in Ireland currently tends to focus only on the curricular languages English and Irish (Gaelic); heritage language transmission (meaning the transmission of languages spoken by the children’s parent(s)) is usually the responsibility of families, communities and local initiatives. However, the role heritage languages play for a child’s development, for their academic skills as well as their psychosocial wellbeing is recognised in the Irish Primary Language Curriculum, which encourages teachers to enhance children’s skills through their entire linguistic repertoire. The curriculum mentions that teachers should foster linguistic diversity and encourage children to develop skills in all of their languages. This includes home languages/heritage languages. However, teachers are not yet trained with a focus on linguistic diversity.

Linguistic diversity, and its inclusion in policy and training documents in education, is a key issue for migrant students in Ireland. There are huge benefits to encouraging linguistic diversity in classrooms: when pupils feel that their languages and cultures are affirmed, they are more likely to develop a strong sense of identity. Additionally, using heritage languages in the classroom also benefits children who only speak the majority language, as it helps them to gain a better understanding of how other people express themselves, resulting in more openness among pupils, respect and intercultural competence. In general, promoting a variety of languages in primary school education is of benefit to all. Heritage language speakers benefit from using their mother tongue because it eases the transition from home to school and because it values their identity and their experiences outside the school. For children who are new to the majority language, being able to use the heritage language allows them to rely on knowledge they have developed in their early childhood to transfer literacy skills and learning strategies.

Additionally, there is a huge positive effect to children from learning in a diverse environment, which presents a strong opportunity for schools to encourage curiosity and independent learning by taking advantage of all the languages children speak in the school. This is something that is incredibly achievable in a country the size of Ireland; in Finland, which has a similar population size, it’s normal for schools even in rural areas to be multilingual. This is definitely something Ireland could adopt to great effect for the benefit of all pupils.

Research shows that bilingualism does not hinder language development nor academic achievement, and it carries great cognitive benefits. However, currently the recognition of its benefits is not widely accepted among either schools or migrant communities in Ireland. In some cases, migrant parents actively discourage their children from adopting the heritage language. This is especially problematic when the heritage language is not perceived to be a “useful” one. There is the idea that some languages are more useful than others, so both parents and teachers have a bias towards languages that seem to be useful for travel, work, or languages that have a high status like French and Spanish, and often do not give enough value of home languages that are spoken by only a few and are not generally learned as foreign languages (such as Greek or Swahili or Tamil).

CONTEXT

On 7^th July 2019, a new government has been elected in Greece, for the forthcoming four years. The new Minister of Education as well as the new vice Minister of Migration Policy will be interviewed in order to select data about the new forthcoming education policies. Amongst the first announced structural changes are the transfer of the Autonomous Department of Coordination of Refugee Education, as well as of other Departments, at the General Secretariat of Primary, Secondary and Special Education, according to the Presidential Decree No 84 (17^th July 2019).

Specifically, the Autonomous Department for the Coordination of Refugee Education had been established as an autonomous body within the Ministry of Education since August 2018. Now, its competences, jurisdictions responsibilities and personnel vacancies are transferred to the General Secretariat of Primary, Secondary and Special Education.

Greece, responding to the mass increase of refugees, asylum seekers and newly arrived migrants right after the refugee crisis of 2015, altered the regulations and guidelines on school placement and assessment of their prior educational experiences so as to protect and safeguard children’s universal right to education (Φ.6 / 1063/82763 / Δ1 / 23-05-2016 / Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs). They have published the following decisions and regulations which are mandatory, while leaving minimum to no limits on schools’ autonomy over the assessment process.

There is specific provision for the educational needs of refugee and asylum seekers’ children who live in RICs (Reception and Identification Centres) and RHCs (Reception and Hospitality Centres). The relevant educational policies are referred at the Common Ministerial Decree 139654/ΓΔ4 regarding the establishment and functioning of DYEP (Education Reception Structures for Refugees), as noted in the government gazette ΦΕΚ2985/Β΄/30-8- 2017. These procedures are common at national level and mandatory. There is no school autonomy, as these are central education policies. Guidelines at national level are provided before the beginning of each school year (Annual Ministry of Education circulars about pupil registration at Kindergarten and Primary Schools). Pupils with no prior education experience in the Greek state education system are normally placed at DYEP structures, unless such structures do not exist in their immediate location. In that case, pupils can register at a mainstream morning Greek State School and, if a sufficient number of newly arrived migrant students request it, the school can host a Reception Class for these students. However, the formation of a Reception Class requires the approval of the Teacher Assembly of the school.

CONTEXT

Experiences of discrimination in the context of the school can disturb education careers in the short and long term. They also negatively impact feelings of belonging to the school and to the society at large. This is particularly relevant when the school as an institution or their staff are the sources of discrimination and/or the school fails to protect children and young people and their families from discrimination. Unfortunately, this is a rather common pattern in Germany. At the same time, discrimination and racism in school are hardly ever thematised in Germany, especially not when teachers are accused of being the perpetrators. Schools and educational authorities generally prioritize solidarity with and among teachers over the clarification of discrimination claims and blocking off claims over mediation mechanisms. Even obvious cases of disadvantaged treatment are usually not sanctioned.

In the German legal frameworks on protection against discrimination, there are considerable gaps and shortcomings. Hence, a comprehensive protection of students and parents from discrimination is not ensured. No Bundesland in Germany has established functioning structures for reporting claims of discrimination, for mediating in cases of discrimination and, if necessary, for bringing forward procedures for disciplinary sanctions.

Initiatives to build up respective structures have been taken over the past few years nearly exclusively by civil society organisations. These organisations have initiated low-threshold, and partially already established, contact points for affected persons. The advantage of these contacts points is that they are independent from institutional pressures within the school system. But this also means that it remains to be seen how, on the long run, these contact points will work together with governmental and municipal institutions and how interventions at school should be targeted in order to eliminate discrimination. Specifically, the following questions need to be clarified:

How can meaningful communication between governmental and municipal institutions and civil society organisations be organized and ensured? Which qualifications and evaluation criteria should be applied for school-specific anti-discrimination counselling?

The German NRT brought together civil society actors from the field of discrimination in the context of school, including migrant-led organisations, with policy makers and researchers from different Bundesländer. The main goal of the NRT was to discuss and develop strategies for how the issue of anti-discrimination counselling in the school context should and can be carried forward in order to lead to more effective measures by federal, regional and local policy makers. These measures should enable and guarantee appropriate and meaningful responses to cases of perceived and experienced discrimination. They should also lead to the establishment of structures for peer-to-peer exchange of experience and knowledge around school-based anti-discrimination counselling.

CONTEXT

The inclusion of newly arrived children in schools and in society is under the competence of the French Ministry of Education and other Ministries such as Sports, Youth, popular education and community life.

Thus, “inclusion” still remains an aim to be reached. In schools, studies (Auger 2019, Goï XX) show that teachers, especially when they do not teach in specific classes for newly arrived children but in regular classes, are not trained on how to promote inclusiveness and are scarcely aware about the use of plurilingualism and previous cultural experiences as resources within the class. At the community level, many NGOs offer extra-classes, art or sport activities to newly arrived children and to their families in order to help them be part of the community and are more open to plurilingualism. Nonetheless, the cooperation between formal and non-formal education remains weak. These elements have been highlighted as main conclusions of the Round Table 2018 in France. The event also strongly stressed the need to create ways and platforms for education stakeholders (associations, NGOs and the National Education system) to better work together. Three different projects were proposed with the goal of creating a “learning territory”, to work and learn together to promote the inclusiveness of newly arrived children. The first idea was to create a digital tool (a platform) to foster the communication between teachers, schools and NGOs; the second aimed at developing inclusive actions by creating synergies between NGOs’ and schools’ initiatives while the last envisages to offer multi-category training to volunteers, social workers, practitioners, teachers and headmasters. In the timeframe between the Round Table 2018 and the one in 2019, the University of Montpellier (UPVM) have organized various meetings with regional policy makers to reflect on how to create a digital tool to reinforce multistakeholder communication and exchange. As outcome of this reflection, a civil servant has been recruited to create the platform as output of the Round Table 2019. With regard to the inclusive actions, UPVM has been able to showcase to schools various initiatives implemented by NGOs at the local level. A traineeship has also been proposed to a Master degree student on “French as a second language” to inform schools in the region about resources offered by associations and NGOs in this area. In relation to the training component, school teachers have been invited to numerous conferences organized by local/regional associations and institutions. Nonetheless, very few of them were able to participate. That is why the ambition of the Round Table in France is to create a digital communication platform as a less challenging tool to mutualize information and promote knowledge sharing.

The main goal of the Round Table 2019 was therefore to gather together different education stakeholders (schools and NGOS, associations) to pave the way for a long-term project on “inclusion” addressing the three aforementioned objectives, with the ambition to include policymakers in the overall process. The final objective was thus to develop strategies for counselling and planning inclusion in schools by building bridges with NGOs on plurilingualism. At this stage, only the local and regional levels are at stake, although the ambition is to extend and replicate the results at a national level as final outcome. These actions should prevent newly arrived children from being excluded from the school system and failing during their studies.

CONTEXT

The Finnish National Agency for Education guides schools all around Finland on the processes of recognising or evaluating the competences or qualifications of migrants. Since municipalities are autonomous bodies, every municipality needs to be concerned in monitoring how schools operate competence recognition processes or whether school authorities follow the guidelines of the Finnish National Agency for Education. The responsibility for the competence recognition processes lies mostly on the shoulders of the classroom teachers themselves, and because many migrants have no Finnish skills, evaluating their abilities is an ongoing task. However, the first interest of teachers is to assess the students’ writing skills (whether they can write and what letter system they use) and other language or communication skills. Although a qualified interpreter is a part of this phase, there is always the possibility of misunderstanding. Therefore, this whole process usually demands many working hours from classroom teachers, whilst schools are running on a budget deficit.

The most important criteria for determining the students’ grade level and educational pathway are based on their age. The teachers also need to develop such knowledge to gain a thorough understanding of the students’ qualifications by assessing their previous achievements from documents such as certificates and diplomas. However, in many situations, immigrant students cannot provide their previous documents. Additionally, teachers must apply extra time and effort to assess their students’ academic and social skills.

This initial assessment demands every school or individual teacher do the complete evaluation of previously gained qualifications. Although the Finnish teacher education system gives adequate expertise to understand diversity among students and to work with the special needs that ethnic minorities can have, many everyday activities of school work demand the majority of the efforts and attention of both schools and teachers. The culturally sensitive perspective is always taken into consideration but its realisation depends on an individual teacher’s skills.

Therefore, the validation of non-formal education does not receive the necessary resources and attention when compared with mainstream education. All teachers have their own individual style of documenting the assessment and recognising the skills of students.

When the implementation of policies rests on the shoulders of individuals, there is a risk of misinterpreting the policies as well. However, recognising previous skills and diplomas takes time and attention, mostly for reforming policies.

In 2015, MoEC set up a steering group to coordinate different short-term and long-term measures to produce an interim report arising from the situation of growing numbers of asylum seekers and immigrants. In 2016, MoEC published their first report and the second report accordingly published in 2017 which included new reforms and measures. In 2018, minister for Education appointed a follow- up committee to monitor the progress of the previous reforms mentioned in those reports in 2016 and 2017. This national follow-up group on “immigrant education and integration” has been initiated by the MoEC 2018 for the period of April-December 2018 and the report published in spring, 2019.  This follow up committee sought to assess the capacity and ability of the education system to respond to the rapidly growing number of asylum seekers and refugees and also proposed some action plans.  This working group has been formed by the selected representatives of distinctive organizations from different regions who represent a range of viewpoints on this subject matter. This working group highlights some new issues that have not yet been addressed in previous reports that also published earlier. These reform proposals of the policies include questions related to teacher availability and qualifications to find out the challenges related to Finnish language skills. New measures are proposed to support both the educational and employment pathways of immigrants. These reforms indeed include consolidating policies and emphasizing local action in youth work (MOEC, 2018).  The NRT contributes to these discussions.