migration and education experts

migration and education experts

The Intersection of Migration and Education: Insights from Experts

1. Introduction to Migration and Education

The 2016 ‘New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants’ represents a turning point in the governance of migration and education at the international level. Also, in the following years, several experts, practitioners, researchers, stakeholders, and international actors have examined the integration of migration and education. As a result, the issue of the intersection of migration and education has emerged within the fields of Education and International Affairs Studies, as well as in the policies and field practice of international organizations, ministerial/inter-ministerial collaborations, and school systems. Experts working in these sectors offer pieces of evidence to steer the focus of scholars and researchers on the growing importance of the intersection between migration and education.

Education and migration, two complex processes, intersect in various forms. The literature on the intersection of migration and education addresses specific issues, including but not limited to educational policies and opportunities for the children of migrants, the access of adult migrants to education, the impact of education on migration, the ‘transnational education’ of children of migrants, and the migration experiences of students. This work positions the individual level of higher education scholars and/or researchers in education. While it constitutes an important contribution to understanding education and migration, it does not provide evidence on the intersection between migration and educational sectors (and their related policies, norms, practices, etc.). Migration and educational sectors are, in fact, critical to the international environment as they meet at different levels, therefore influencing each other in terms of policies, practices, norms, and regulations across the world. Once merged in these sectors, migration and education are interconnected to various policy fields, including but not limited to employment, development, security, and justice.

2. Challenges and Opportunities in Education for Migrants

Migrants often find themselves in disadvantageous circumstances, especially when they have experienced an impoverished upbringing or may be newcomers to the host country. Their educational disadvantage can be attributed to unequal access to educational resources, barriers related to language, the impact of trauma, disrupted access to education back in their home countries or during migration journeys, and attitudes towards the education of their parents, who were also migrants. They should, therefore, be able to exploit these skills and be given a second chance in the hosting country. At the same time, the effect of migration on educational attainment is not always negative, as witnessing a diversified environment provides essential learning. Clear and apparent benefits can be experienced when, for example, being in close contact with diverse communities, with children from different backgrounds, provides essential skills for living in a globalized world.

In terms of age, recent migrants are more likely to experience learning difficulties at the start of their educational career due to their lack of proficiency in the language of the host country and given the potentially higher frequency of disruptions in their educational pathways than migrants born in the host country. In sum, a positive view of international migration is directly linked to the creation of inclusive learning environments, as they can benefit the host communities and promote the social inclusion of newcomers.

Education is a key dimension of migration and a fundamental human right linked to a series of opportunities, choices, and life chances. Ensuring access to quality education for all children, irrespective of their citizenship and migration status, is both a legal commitment and an essential policy goal for countries belonging to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the European Union (EU), and the United Nations (UN) alike. At the same time, the educational needs and goals of international migrant students are different, based on factors such as their age, language skills, country of origin, and length of educational experience.

3. Best Practices and Innovations in Education for Migrants

Throughout the meetings, key stakeholders identified a number of factors that enable the successful integration of local practices and questions into global and transnational projects. Throughout the two meetings, these themes gave texture to the discussions in the meetings, and helped shape the policy recommendations of the report. In this section, then, we focus on several of the best practices, highlighting initiatives and insights that were shared during the two meetings. We explore the continuum of practices that span programming individual student support to enhancing the capacity of schools and communities. We offer some examples of innovative teaching, since, as one of our experts said, “teaching where 30-40 languages are spoken is not enough of a solution”. And we describe summaries of national programs and policies that our experts know of, and in some cases implement. Our ambition is that, for nurturing Member States, this section of the report will be more than an inventory of expert approval. It is a starting point for a dialogue on the development and adaptation for different cultural settings of the practices described in the programs and policies and the teaching and community engagement examples.

Ways to support the educational needs of migrants is an important theme of the key insights from expert meetings on the intersection of migration and education. Section 3 identifies best practices and innovations in education that have proved successful. The guiding questions asked during the meetings were: – What are the most successful practices in providing inclusive and accessible education to migrant students? – Are there specialized ways of teaching that can engage migrant students better? – What are proven successful initiatives aimed at realizing the right to an equitable education for migrants? Many of the experts identified specific country, region, or school-based examples of programs aimed at helping migrant children in their countries. Several expert meeting participants shared best practices in the education of refugees and migrants in Canada, Italy, Lebanon, and the United States. These examples included language teacher training, language courses, intercultural and community activities, academic programs, and supports for children in cities, regions, and schools.

4. Policy Recommendations for Enhancing Education Access for Migrants

Secondly, we need to promptly improve the level of government support. Literature training programs should include ways to implement migration education policies and migration education theory. Resources for local special boards of education should be increased. In particular, a system of rewards and punishments is needed to facilitate the transfer of children to migrant families and encourage participation from family education, teachers from the local school management committee, and the education community. To ensure a good education for migrant children, the relevant local government departments should incorporate the contents of migrant education into the legally administered system and ensure that complementary education for migrant children is implemented through legislation, government policies, and various departments. This way, migrants can access higher quality services and benefit from vulnerable-friendly policies.

Firstly, it is essential to assess the needs of migrant children’s education through surveys and provide a comprehensive analysis of their educational requirements. Institutions need to scientifically plan and fund municipal educational infrastructure, and if necessary, construct appropriate schools for adults. Both regular and migrant children’s schools should incorporate memetic learning at appropriate times. The establishment of a multi-channel, multi-class system for migrant children, along with a multi-type independent compulsory school management system, could become a preferred system in China in the future.

To provide access to migrants in order to guarantee continuity, minimize social tension, and enhance social harmony between migrant children and local children, as well as promote long-term economic development, especially human capital, we are making the following relevant policy recommendations.

5. Conclusion and Future Directions

The insights of the experts in this collection support the view that understanding education as a pathway to social cohesion has its limitations. Almost all of the assumptions we hold about the linkages between migration and education cannot be generalized in a useful way. Migration and mobility – from within or outside of state borders – precedes and is greater than education, i.e. knowledge in and between countries and cultures was here before schools and higher education were invented. Education can deepen skills, thus increasing productivity, but it is not the only reason people move from one country to another or from one part of a country to another. Education and migration patterns have continuously changed throughout human history, and they continue to change. Today, due to financial constraints and security checks, fewer individuals have the opportunity to engage in international mobility. At the same time, global political influences, combined with economic disruptions and conflicts between countries, have also forced people to move.

The seven insights described in this paper underline the complexities and ambiguities – challenges and opportunities – of the intersection between migration and education. In this concluding section, we synthesize insights from the previous chapters and discuss their implications. Moreover, as this report provides a bird’s-eye view of the state of research on the intersection of migration and education, it could open up fruitful avenues for further policy-relevant research. We suggest different, more inclusive ways of thinking about this topic, including the research of the ‘hidden education system for undocumented migrants’ initiated by the Initiatives of Change, as well as the involvement of refugees in education policymaking which has recently been conducted by the European Parents’ Association. Legal migration and mobility are much more effective ways of increasing ‘skills stocks’ than trying to upskill entire populations in countries of origin. Efforts to fully include young migrants into education systems and labour markets as quickly as possible must not be at the expense of high-quality guidance and support. In their recent book on migration and schooling, Steve Strand et al. argue that it is not until mid to later adolescence (15 years and over) that education systems are perceived as avenues of opportunity, with ideology ingrained in earlier childhood education. Practical interventions already exist for improving the psychological support for young migrants; this could be scaled up. Two programs aimed at improving mental health outcomes for migrant communities through access to professional mental health services are A-CHESS (Alcohol Computerised Health Education) and M-HAPPY (Mental Health for Asylum Seekers and Primary Care). Other UK-based systems for training education professionals in this area are being designed. Educational systems can be far more inclusive for migrants if the local benefits of host societies have been fully socialized in the domestic political ideas of the indigenous population. Governments that involve the local population in the design of integration-related strategies can anticipate and preemptively deal with some of the tensions of the adoption of those strategies later. A survey of 1,800 Germans in Dortmund has found that a younger demographic is more likely to agree that education is a way making Germany more seemingly attractive as a destination, though only 40 percent wish to see migrants welcome in schools. As in the Netherlands, people in work are often more likely to object to the presence of migrant children in primary schools. Policing and controlling migration levels is not needed when the potential foreign applicants for migrant and refugee status are aware of negative public opinion.