Migrant Education Week Day 3: What are the solutions to supporting migrant learners in adult education?
***This discussion is now closed.***
The current migration crisis has emphasised the vital role of adult education in supporting the integration and skills development of migrants across the European Union.
In our three-day discussion, we’ll be talking about:
- Solutions (28 April)
In this thread we’ll be talking about solutions – what are the best ways to support both newly arrived migrant learners and established communities access and complete education programmes? We want to hear your views on the key factors for success, best practice examples and how to replicate this elsewhere.
Komentar
Ending our discussion today
Dear friends, we have come to the end of our discussion today. Thank you all for sharing your experiences and contributing such thoughtful and insightful comments. From our discussions it is clear that there are some great examples of good practice across Europe, and this has been a good opportunity to learn from each other. Issues remain, particularly those of sustainability, getting higher level buy-in and policy support, funding, support of volunteers /teachers and quality. Please look out for the summary of our discussion which will be posted shortly on the site.
Thanks and very best wishes, Linda
The role of volunteers and additional training provided for them
Hi, My name is Simon Broek, I am thematic coordinator Learning Environments on EPALE.
Earlier the issue was raised about volunteers in providing education to migrants and refugees (I learned the difference only today: /en/blog/unhcr-viewpoint-refugee-or-migrant-which-right). Often the training relies on volunteers and is solidarity based, as is the case in this Greek example: /en/blog/education-asylum-seekers-based-solidarity-example-greece
These volunteers are often not educated and trained to provide adult learning, let alone to a difficult and heterogeneous group of migrants and refugees.
I came across an interesting initiative there a university (language centre) provides introductory courses to volunteers: /en/blog/volunteers-teach-dutch-language-refugees-how-are-they-prepared
I am sure our discussion forum is now full with interesting examples and it will take time to digest all the valuable contributions in this EPALE discussion forum!
Volunteers and quality assurance
Hi Simon and welcome! Yes; the issue of relying on volunteer teachers and mentors has come up in our discussions and it does raise the issue of how to ensure the quality of our provision for migrants. There is an interesting post above by Phil Bird (12:14) about the My English First project which attempts to address this via online resources, training and support for teachers.
Some comments & videos from practitioners working with migrants
Hello again, Emma here from the NSS Ireland. Anyone who was in yesterday’s discussion may remember that we had attended an ESOL Conference run by NALA here in Ireland. As part of this we made video recordings and surveyed attendees’ (all of whom work with migrants) on the 3 main questions of these discussions. Here is a summary of their responses to the question around supports and success factors.
As you will see in the video from one of the participants Jane, a really important aspect in that the learning environment there is a two way relationship. This is especially important for the groups that Jane works with as they are coming from stressful situations and many have refugee status. It is essential that the learners are able to feel their contribution is important. Alongside this many attendees talked about the need for a safe and welcoming space for learners.
Overcoming practicalities such as the need for childcare was seen as a success factor. Centres providing homework clubs for children so parents can study seemed a practical solution. Also the idea of financial support to encourage learners to stay involved arose many times in the feedback.
I can see that mentoring has already been discussed on this forum and a similar idea arose yesterday also. as well as mentoring while learning the idea of guidance as a separate support was something that providers thought would assist migrants.
Ensuring learners are placed at the right level of learning and not replying solely on their language level for this assessment was seen as important also. As discussed yesterday two people with similarly low levels of English may have varying levels of education. So proper assessment and proper allocation of places were seen as important.
Learners being informed in advance of their pathways within learning and seeing a visible progression through the system of qualifications is something that can motivate. Two very practical tips were - the use of Learner Journals as a way of instilling a sense of responsibility and follow up with learners and the use of a site called Wicispaces to set up online classrooms. Although many may think this would be intimidating research conducted by one practitioner Laura seen here in our video suggests the opposite.
Very valuable practical tips
Very valuable practical tips and advice. Many thanks Emma; sounds like it was a great conference.
Integration of adult education with other services
We've had some posts about the difficulty of providing 'joined up' education services, lack of proper resourcing and problems with short term funding. I sometimes find it amazing that adult education still thrives with this lack of national and European strategy backed up by proper resources. Adult education has been referred to as the 'Cinderella' of the UK education sector, and for very goo reason.
However, are colleagues out there managing to link their adult education programmes with other services which are key to the integration of migrants, for example, health and housing? Phil mentioned the importance of running programmes in community venues where perhaps other services are on site, are there other similar iniatives?
crisis management
Welcome Ahmet, and thank you for this overview of the work being done in Turkey. It is clear that Turkey is one of the countries at the forefront of the humanitarian crisis. Much of this very important work that you mention is targetting children and youth, are there any initaives which particularly address the learning needs of adults; for example young people who may wish to enter higher education, or who have had their university studies interrupted, or those who wish to develop skills (enginneering, teaching, medicine etc.) which will be needed to rebuild Syria in the future? Or is it a case of manging the immediate crisis?
Thank you Ahmet for your
Thank you Ahmet for your informations and above all, your work for refugees!
I find it sad that nowadays the media is only reporting about Turkey and your president as a key to "keeping _them_ there"... For years now you are aiding people from neighboring countries in deep need and I can´t even begin to understand the conditions you have to work within.
Even if in small numbers, any support you write about is sooo important, and also has a huge affect on how those mostly Syrian refugees look at their own lives and future prospects, wherever they end up living. Please keep up the invaluable work and rest assured that many people in Europe look at Turkey and the service of well-meaning officials as well as NGO´s and volunteers as so much more than just gatekeepers!
Supporting migrants with higher level qualifications
In the discussions this morning the importance of developing pathways through education and into employment was raised, and we saw interesting examples offered by Pablo from Canada and Roberto from Germany of the sort of programmes being offered to support migrants.
As we know, many migrants come to Europe with higher level skills and qualification. Have colleagues got examples of projects which support migrants into jobs which match their qualifications and experiences which they bring?
Helping in job searching
Among the very few migrant inclusion programmes in Hungary (and all of them are implement by the civil sector) I would mention the comprhenshive inclusion programme of Artemisszió Foundation (http://artemisszio.blog.hu/2014/06/17/about_us_237) that also deals with skill development and mentoring in job searching of migrants. In this program many participants studies at higher education or have already graduated and this programme element is succesful especially among this educated group. Nevertheless, this programme is also open for less educated migrants and they can also profit from the mentoring in job searching. This is a pretty unique initiative in Hungary although this approach is focusing on a very basic need of all groups of migrants.
Careful not to discriminate
On this topic, of supporting higher qualified migrants, it is important to monitor the facet that EU does not only "select" the high qualified work force and leaves the rest in Turkey. A retired Turkish diplomat pointed this out, that recently with the new EU-Turkey deal, from the 3 million refugees in Turkey the EU is hand-picking hte educated ones for ensuring asylum, leaving the rest behind for Turkey to deal with.
This is not only dangerous, but also unethical. However, it is not something that hasn't happened in the past when for exmample Romania during communism was "selling" both Germans and Jews back to Germany or Israel, having had a different price depending on qualifications.
Is it more diffciult to quality assure migrant Education?
We've talked about the use of volunteer teachers and volunteer mentors to fill the gap left by publicly funded provision; does this raise particular challenegs to ensuring the quality of programmes for migrants? Are there other challenges which apply particulary to this group?
Quality assurance of migrant projects
One solution we came up for maintaining quality in times of lack of funding was for expert teachers to create resources centrally which are shared freely online.
Principles of the design of our resources
- Learner centred approach with 3 week diagnostic assessment.
- Learning checks, differentiation tips included in each lesson.
- Many visuals to get learners thinking in the form of photos and videos.
- Emphasis on speaking and listening using audio and video.
- Introduction to reading and writing skills.
- Detailed teacher’s notes show novice teacher how to make learning relevant to their learners.
- Online professional development on techniques relevant to working with beginners with low literacy.
- Face to face training at local events to share good practice and encourage ongoing relationships between local NGOs.
- Bite sized professional development videos.
Read our blog here. Please get in touch with any questions about the project julie.day@britishcouncil.org
Volunteers in Migrant Education
Hi Linda,
My name is David Mallows, I'm thematic coordinator for Life Skills on EPALE, representing the European Basic Skills Network (http://www.basicskills.eu). I wrote about the use of volunteers in Migrant Education in this blog /en/blog/social-migrant-language-education. I've pasted in the relevant section below:
Teaching and volunteers
Recent years have seen a rise in the use of volunteers in migrant education as demand has increased and paid roles have become increasingly difficult to fund. We should be careful when talking about volunteers. Volunteer is purely an economic description – it means that someone is not paid for the work that they do. It doesn’t say anything about their training or their ability to carry out a particular role. So, a volunteer teacher is a qualified teacher who is not being paid; anyone else is just a volunteer, not a teacher. In the Netherlands the terms ‘professional’ and ‘non-professional’ have been adopted in recognition of this.
And there are a great many ways in which non-professionals can enhance the learning process within, and particularly outside, the classroom – as language buddies, coaches, conversation partners, mentors or befrienders. By engaging in this way non-professionals can support and encourage adult migrants in their learning and their language use.
There is great goodwill in EU Member States towards migrants and refugees, with individuals keen to give their time to help them adapt and prosper. We should move quickly to harness that goodwill by defining roles and designing and providing training and support structures.
The value of 'non-professional' volunteers
It is a relevant point, David: although 'professional' and 'non-professional' volunteers should be distinguished, no question why, it might not lead to a degradation of the 'non-professionals'. On the one hand, they provide so many essential help for migrants, your comment adequatly shows the list of these "services" (which enhancing not only the learning process, but the process of integration also), but on the other hand these 'non-professional' volunteers are professionals in other fields (other than language teaching) which might be also very much useful in mentoring and helping in everyday challenges. Volunteers as migrant helpers are on the rise nowadays due to the large number of newcomers in the past years, and more and more share of the work is done by volunteers - to what extent can it be increased?
Excellent point Aniko - we
Excellent point Aniko - we should make better use of the 'professional' expertise (and contacts) of volunteers.
Volunteers
This is a controversial issue in the UK – teachers have constantly to battle against many politicians view that if you can speak a language you can teach it effectively. We have a long tradition of involving volunteers as teachers, supporters and befrienders. There used to be national qualifications for volunteers. Trainee teachers also frequently gain teaching practice through voluntary teaching. Good quality programmes used trained volunteers working alongside qualified teachers.
English My Way centres also use volunteers - many of whom can speak the language of the majority of their learners. Volunteers may also lead informal Learning Circles using video and printed resources produced by the BBC as a valuable addition to the classes taught by teachers. They also help with recruitment, pastoral issues, ICT sessions and supporting class sessions especially where their bilingual skills are required. They also help with recruitment, pastoral issues, ICT sessions and supporting class sessions especially where their bilingual skills are required. Some have gone on to train for ESOL teaching qualifications.
Programmes to assist volunteers: Learning Circles
The Learning Circles approach is quite interesting. These are aimed at non-professional volunteers who take the role of group leader to help family and friends learn English. There are useful resources that will help these group leaders run sessions with videos, storyboards and handouts to choose from. They cover the everyday English needed to survive in the UK.
There’s guidance and a Trainer’s Guide to show how to run a Learning Circle. Check it out here.
Solutions from EAEA
Some projects are already leading the way in solving these challenges. Find out what Tania Berman, Policy Officer at the European Association for the Education of Adults, thinks are the most important support mechanisms in her post '3 ways to support refugees.'
I find the aspect of
I find the aspect of supporting/informing the local population very important in Tania´s post!
A very nice colleague from Denmark who was deeply involved in helping North-African refugees once told me a "funny" story. He lives in a small community, and invited a few refugees back home to his house to have dinner. When driving them back to the shelter, a neighboor of him saw them and inmediately informed the police, that "some black people are kidnapping our social worker!". When he returned home he was quite amazed to see his house and ground raided by police forces ;)
That moment and the clarification afterwards by his well-meaning neighboor made him realize how important indeed it is not only to help refugees but also his local community to integrate them.
social media
I think the best example is the use of social media and organisational networks. Because NGOs are using social media for mot of their work, education agencies can consider social media to be part of recruiting and outreach. National platforms of NGOs and other platforms example of business or migrant networks can circulate information too.
Social Media
That's a good point....
We've tried to use our Social Media channels on Twitter - @EnglishMyWayUK and Facebook - EnglishMyWayUK to publicise what we've been doing - so that other people/organisations can use our resources and capacity building content. (We'd love it if you followed and liked us!)
We've also been trying to use them as a model to demonstrate how online resources and social media can be beneficial for professional development.
In terms of building our network, it's been quite successful - we've built up a network of relevant followers and it does lead to more clicks through to our content. What has been harder has been to get much sustained interaction & discussion through these media - has anyone here been successful in doing that?
Maybe we should ask you to tweet us your ideas :)
A two way process
Here is a short clip from the Nala ESOL Conference yesterday in Dublin. Jane an ESOL tutor from Kerry Education and Training Board briefly explains how important a two way process is when teaching migrants and refugees.
Sustainability
Hello All
I'm Celine Castelino from English My Way. It's wonderful to hear about all the initiatives and programmes developed throughout Europe. My concern is about sustainability - we have had some great mentoring, guidance and English language programmes in the UK e g the ASSET UK project led by the Refugee Council and replicated in several EU states. Sadly little survived when the funding ended. How do we influence policy to ensure long term sustainability and development?
We have tried to address sustainability in our English My Way project - mentioned above by my colleagues Julie and Phil, which involves small community-based centres that operate on minimal funding, through teacher/volunteer training, peer observation, blended learning and ensuring that all our resources are available online for the next three years at least.
Funding and quality assurance
Thanks for all your comments so far this morning. I think the ‘golden thread’ as Roberto called it the importance of getting best practice initiatives taken up and embedded in national Government (or indeed European) policies to ensure sustainability. Without this to many excellent initiatives disappear as soon as funding ends. I think this points to the importance of platforms like this which enable the sharing of good practice.
At the end of today I will summarise the examples of good practice which have emerged in our discussions, but now I would like to move us on to think about firstly, who is funding programmes for newly arrived migrants - public? private? third sector?
Secondly, what are the challenges of quality assuring migrant education programmes?
Funding and quality assurance
Sorry, Celine again, I think I cross posted below. It's a very mixed picture in the UK - in England access to publicly funded ESOL depends on your status. Some people have to wait for 3 years before they are able to attend publicly funded courses. Most provision for 'new arrivals' - usually refugees seeking asylum, is provided by the third-sector often using volunteer teachers who may not have any specialist training. Quality assurance outside the public sector, which is regulated and subject to regular inspections by a national agency - Ofsted, reputable private sector providers are also quality assured but would expensive/unaffordable for low-paid migrant workers or asylum-seekers, although some offer free places to the latter, third-sector providers may have to comply with funders' quality requirements but these may not cover English language teaching.
Funding programmes in austria and challenges of quality
Hallo Linda!
In austria there a some private foundations (Sinnstifter) as well as governmental fonds (ÖIF) supplying resources to initiatives and projects.
One of the challenges to guarantee the quality of education I figured out in our work with NGO´s and free initiatives is time. Expecially the time people have to wait in between their next-level classes, e.g. from A1 to A2. After learning the very basics in a professional or non-professional language-class, the time spend waiting to continue with their education on the next level is, at least in austria, in between 1 - 6 month. The lattest is not an exception. To guarantuee the quality in this field it is important to have at least something close to a fluent progress. In my research it shows up that there is a lack of communication between the involved organisations which results in long-waiting periods.
With this it is not mentioned, that there are a lot of language pupils that have to leave the class after a couple of days/weeks, because they got send to a different accomodation in a different city/state with another organisation in charge. To tie in with the already gathered knowledge in the new language appears to be very hard for some. Especially when they have to wait for month to continue or start over with their classes.
This is no criticism to the peopleinvolved - solely to the so far established best practice in administration.
So here the challenge is
So here the challenge is interruption to the learning process, either because the personal situation of the migrant, or the provider organisation. Can you explain the supply side? Is it that providers aren't aware that learners are moving through a system and need progression because different organisations are providing different levels and there is no 'joined up' thinking and planning?
In the UK we have similar issues, but here it simply that supply cannot meet demaind so we have waiting lists...
The supply side is, on the
The supply side is, on the one side, made up of established, big NGO´s, volunteers and educational institutions. This side provides resources such as staff, knowledge, amazing new ways of how to educate these new "pupils", motivation and rooms to study if available.
On the other side is the government and the foundations supplying ressources in form of money and sometimes rooms.
All these bodies have different kinds of motivation and ways to handle processes - so a lack of 'joined up' thinking and planning might entitle it well. Political thinking and static structures might also lead to a point where the discussion changes topic from "what is best practice" to protecting the very own institutional way of handling processes.
As a matter of fact, in austria and germany as well demand is higher than supply. Nonetheless, given supply is by times handled not efficiently and ressources are granted ineffective due to this resistance. Transparency and communication should be enhanced.
A proposal - from a different perspective
Hello everyone!
My name is Henning. I worked, lived and traveled in different european countries and abroad. My educational backround is in business administration and I voluntarily worked with NGO´s/NPO´s. Right now I work for a tech/educational start up in vienna, austria. The founders developed a very dynamic solution in the field of course management, featuring plenty useful tools to save time, organize and plan courses/events/workshops, coordinate on several levels, foster communication and delivers an inherent transparency. It received awards from governmental and economic institutions.
I got the chance to implement a project, focusing on the actual topic of educational perspectives for refugees. The project evolved over several month now. We are in contact with national and european-wide operating NGO´s, refugees, state institutions (austria), governmental bodies (austria), foundations (austria/germany), and voluntary staff.
The latter worked together with us on a beta-test, adapting our tool to the field of NPO-needs. We received great feedback so far. This follows the idea to support the voluntary initiatives and the bigger NGO´s in their work. In the end it is supposed to include all bodies working in this field and create a proper welfare.
After following the discussion in the last two days, I realized that most of the experiences, problems and ideas have a lot in common from country to country. To continue this line of thoughts, one can say that the refugees are not bound to a specific country in europe until they apply for asylum - even then it is hard to guarantee that they stay in this country. The flow of people therefore appears to be on a european level, so thats maybe the way to tackle the coordination/communication - by following the stream of people.
Our proposal for the autrian volunteers is, that they receive our "tool" on a free basis. Thats what we are working on right now.
Our company would like to state the same offer to any other initiative in europe. In case the community sees this as an appropriate offer, I would be glad to answer questions, provide information and explain what is needed reffering to our solution-proposal. Feedback would be great.
I hope this also takes the direction Linda is interessted in the discussion with Roberto. I refer to "exploring how we develop pathways through education and into employment - which is generally recognised as a key marker of integration. There is also another start up in austria, starting where our solution ends - they work together with companies and develop a scheme for traineeships for arriving people.
Halo Linda
Mentoring as mentioned by Marcelle is an effective tool to support refugees/migrants in poverty alleviation. That is exactly what we do at WHEAT MST here in the UK. Enlightened refugees/migrants who have achieved a lot become mentors to their compatriots and show them the right direction by sharing their experiences. We have also involve British nationals as mentors which has helped hugely in the process of integration. We have what we call a 'three generation mentoring' which means that a refugee/migrant who was supported through mentoring becomes a mentor to another fellow refugee/migrant. That way we cascade mentoring across the board and reach out as many refugees/migrants as possible. In our mentoring progammes, we had for example, a Sudanese Lawyer who mentored an Iranian mentee who succeeded in attaining university education in a BA programme majoring Psychology who in turn became a mentor to another Eastern European mentee and enabled her to gain a teaching job. This shows us that there is a great deal of resources within the refugees/migrants themselves which can be tapped into the education system.
"Keeping up with the Khans"
I strongly recommend this Channel 4 documentary - it is very enlightening and a fresh view on what kind of obstacles (see yesterday!) refugees are facing during their first months (sometimes even years).
So, if you can, check out "Keeping up with the Khans" - in short it explores the lives and aspirations of new migrants to Britain, and the impact that immigration has on one community.
Halo Linda
Mentoring as mentioned by Marcelle is an effective tool to support refugees/migrants in poverty alleviation. That is exactly what we do at WHEAT MST here in the UK. Enlightened refugees/migrants who have achieved a lot become mentors to their compatriots and show them the right direction by sharing their experiences. We have also involve British nationals as mentors which has helped hugely in the process of integration. We have what we call a 'three generation mentoring' which means that a refugee/migrant who was supported through mentoring becomes a mentor to another fellow refugee/migrant. That way we cascade mentoring across the board and reach out as many refugees/migrants as possible. In our mentoring progammes, we had for example, a Sudanese Lawyer who mentored an Iranian mentee who succeeded in attaining university education in a BA programme majoring Psychology who in turn became a mentor to another Eastern European mentee and enabled her to gain a teaching job. This shows us that there is a great deal of resources within the refugees/migrants themselves which can be tapped into the education system.
Thanks Hailu; this is a
Thanks Hailu; this is a lovely example of how migrants can be supported to support each other. I particularly like the idea of 'cascade mentoring'. Can I ask whether you link with other organisations working with migrants? And where your funding comes from?
Examples of good practice in outreach?
Does anyone have examples of good practice in outreach and promotion of programmes that they would like to share? Earlier discusssions have mentioned the role that migrants themselves can play, and the importance of word of mouth. I wondered if there were any others?
Bridging Programs in Canada
From our experience researching solutions for skills assesment and skills acquisition we found the Bridging Programs in Canada to be an effective solution.
They are individually-tailored programes which include:
1. A language assesment and correspondent tailored language programmes aiming at labour market insertion
2. Education and Skills assesment including credential recognitions.
3. Individualised action plants to acquire education and skills training required for desired labour market outcomes.
4. Assistance with bridging issues of cultural capital - such as commmunicating skills and experiece to Canadian employers.
It is certainly a lot more progressive than what is being done in Europe, and it merits a closer look.
Regards
Pablo
Thanks Pablo, and welcome! It
Thanks Pablo, and welcome! It is good to have a contribution from a 'settler country' with a longer history of migration. This certainly does sound a comprehensive and coherent approach, the sort which exists in only very small pockets in Europe. Can you say who funds and supports these programmes? The issue we are grappling with at the moment is how we get good practice initiatives taken up by national Government / policy makers.
2 Programmes Which Bridged State Policy and Civic Action
Relating also to Linda's comment two programmes that I know of have bridged the civic action with policy support (integration into the National Education Framework), and this in several countries:
1. School Mediators Programme (especially for Roma) . The School Mediators Programme , already implemented in several European countries, has worked with Roma community members to engage so that they encourage and increase attendance, reduce drop-out, increase academic performance as well as harmonise the relationship between the school and community. I believe that there are several lessons/frameworks that can be drawn from this programme and possibly to adapt to the new context of migrant and refugee education.
A publication and guide for school mediators can be found here:
http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/education/roma/Source/Mediators_EN.pdf
2. Second chance education, aims to keep early-leavers in school and also to assist those who have been left out of the educational system (for one reason or another) to catch up with the learning and qualifications. This programme is recognised within the Educational System of several countries and in many cases represents one of the few chances for students who fall 'off the radar' to be integrated. Students are very diverse and the teaching methodology is highly personalised. Special teacher training is also implemented. Due to the profile of this programme and of its implementers and beneficiaries it has a high potential as in the case of School Mediators to serve as a framework for extending it to migrant and refugee population. (migrants are already often included in such system)
Again, more info on a recent assessment of the Second Education Programme can be found here:
http://ec.europa.eu/education/news/2014/20140410-study-second-chance-ed… as well as at the platform for second chance education: http://www.secondchanceeducation.eu/
My open question, which remains is whether there is enough political will, or how we can create this political will to translate what already is documented as good practice into POLICY directly and specifically aimed at migrant and refugee populations AND how can we further improve such programmes with the ideas that were discussed in the various conversations (more engagement from migrants themselves, more focus to PSS, more innovation in methodology etc)
Last year we were brushing up
Last year we were brushing up the results of our 2-year long Leonardo partnership regarding "Social and Emotional Learning in Vocational Education and Training (SELVET)" and came to the unsurprising conclusion that YES, it is necessary to have it, and we should make the whole "EU Policy Maker Community" (whoever that might be) aware of this fact.
While trying to identify the hindering elements, it turned out that "let´s put more money into the social and emotional education of our children" is not a sexy message for politicians. They tend to use simple and positive messages when adressing their voters, and only real statespersons (who deserve this term) are looking beyond a 4-year period and dare to communicate "unsexy", costly messages.
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I think in Germany, one of the reasons why Angela Merkel decided to accept so many migrants is (apart from her personal belief or still existing remorse over German history) her view on how German society in general and German industry in particular could or should "survive" the future.
In contrary to many other leaders in Europe, I think she understands Migrants as an asset, whether as future workforce or as future consumer, to keep the engine running so to speak.
What I mean is: IF there is a national agenda, then there is money. As we can see in Germany nowadays for these kind of projects.
Channelizing it and putting it to good use... well, that´s another question. And whether or not these efforts for refugees will stay a "sexy" message towards to voters, remains to be seen as well.
Use resources - combine NGO/private initiative/institutions
Roberto, I quite agree that when a government decides to open the countries for migrants including asylum seekers (like Angela Merkel did), material resources are there and can be further generated. I can tell of many examples in the field of school and adult education. Much depends on the political will, and can be implemented despite the hostile attitude of part of the population and of the political parties (still a minority) . There is a lot of generosity and concrete initiative around, courses and learning materials are developed, as we can read in many comments in this discussion. I think that local and regional authorities, for example in Germany, are ready to accept many ideas and contributions from NGOs, volunteers, and scholars working at universities. In other words, what we registered on the first day of this discussion (26th April), namely that many private and NGO and local initiatives exist, but national coordination does not always appear to be an option, is true in some countries, but not in all. My idea is, that all this enormous amount of work at the local level, which we see in many countries, can and should be combined with the openness of some authorities and with the existing public money, to become more effective and reach more people, with quality offers and programmes. Bottom-up instead of top-down, or using top-down signals of openness, where they exist. Politicians and authorities need the input of people!
Good practise example - National agency Croatia
In 2009 Education and Teacher Training Agency, Croatia (national agency)started the project “Strategies for teaching and learning Croatian as a second language” in partnership with KulturKontankt Austria. This project aimed to provide teacher training programme for Croatian language teachers, classroom teachers, school expert staff and Principles that are teaching students Croatian language as a second language. Project participants were 25 teachers who do have experience with foreign students in their schools and classrooms. For example in the City of Zagreb there are 19 elementary schools and 12 secondary schools that enrolled foreign students from 25 different countries. One of the project activities was to develop handbook that will help teachers not only to teacher Croatian as a second language but will also give them the wide perspective and tools on integration and intercultural learning.Evaluation from the participants was excellent, the handbook was produced and showed as very helpfull but there was no further activities after the project ended as there were no available funds for extension to other schools and to include other teachers. The evaluation and siupervision of the project showed less drop out rates of students (especially Roma students), more partcipation of parents in education of their childern and more open school environment for all. That was the biggest result of the action.The handbook was produced and it is useful for those teachers who are facing issues with language barriers in their everyday school life. Adittionally they would need training on how to use concrete methods and gain skills for learning Croatian as a second language. Even though this project is targeted mostly for learning Croatian as a second language the methods used in the project could be replicated to other countries. Especially the positive feedback from teachers involved can be used as a goodpractise example to other countries even it was small scale project.
Presentation of the project results can be foudn here: http://www.sirius-migrationeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/2.-…
"Evaluation from the
"Evaluation from the participants was excellent, the handbook was produced and showed as very helpfull but there was no further activities after the project ended as there were no available funds for extension to other schools and to include other teachers."
It seems like we have this as a golden thread today... :(
Higher level support for initiatives ...
I agree Roberto; this does seem to be a theme: excellent iniatives which disappear as soon as a funding stream comes to an end. Is this the story across countries? Celia (DE) mentioned Federal Government support for a blended learning iniatives. Do colleagues have examples of central co-ordination, or high level political support for initiatives?
Funding has been highlighted as an issue in Slovenia
Dr. Natalija Vrečer said that financial barriers must be removed in her recent blog post.
The governmental support and
The governmental support and efficient organisational structure of German community colleges (Volkshochschulen) is due to their more than a century old history and positive reputation throughout society.
Indeed, while not being part of the regular VET/University circle, the organisation of these community colleges is strong and very active and thus gets more attention and support by federal government. Many projects provide degrees and widely accepted certificates. This makes it a bit easier being associated with language trainings and becoming key elements in handling the current Migrant situation with various initiatives.
I would imagine that without such a strong NGO-structure, efforts in other countries could be more disjointed? I am curious too, looking at our topic from an organisational point of view!
My name is Hailu Hagos. I am
My name is Hailu Hagos. I am a founder and executive director of WHEAT Mentor Support Trust. Very sorry to have missed the previous discussions but it is never too late. I strongly agree with other commentators that language barrier is the strongest challenge for adult education. Taking English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) for example, it is not accessible to all refugees and migrants. Even if it is accessible, the quality is so low. Extensive and intensive ESOL learning should countinue and child care services should be available to mothers with children. When refugees/migrants are educated they are likely to go into employment. When they are employed, they move out of the benefits system and indeed pay their taxes. This is a win win outcome both to the refugees/migrants themselves and their host country.
Thanks Hailu, and welcome. I
Thanks Hailu, and welcome. I have a quick look at your website and wondered whether you feel there are aspects of what you do which are particularly successful in supporting migrants?
You raise some important points about policy and language provision in the UK and how some migrants are excluded from provision. We will be discussing quality assurance later in the morning and the points you raise about quality of teaching is very relevant to this. As I mentioned above, casualisation of English language teaching is impacting on quality in the UK. I'm not sure if this is an issue for colleagues in other countries?
National programm to support blended learning
The blended learning project "Ich will Deutsch lernen" is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and research (BMBF).
Deutscher Volkshochschul-Verband is a NGO, the head organisation of a network of 940 Volkshochschulen (Adult Education Centres) in all over Germany.
Our project at DVV does not only develop the tools but also establishes didactical concepts for the integration of digital learning material in German classes. We identify best practice and communicate these examples. We also develop and provide trainings for teachers on a national level.
Good practices so far ...
So it seems from our discussion so far that there are a number of examples of good practice. Very briefly: the importance of holistic approaches which recognise the psychosocial needs of newly arrived migrants and the context in which they are living; existing longer term settled migrants as a key resource in supporting the development of programmes and the engagement of newly arrived; and blended learning opportunities to support language learning and address issues of heterogenity of migrants learning biographies.
Am I right in thinking that many of the examples we have been discussing so far are emerging from a local/ community base?
How are such initaives supported by policies? Either regional or national?
Thank you all for your comments!
Thank you for your comments over the past three days. We’ve had hundreds of interesting comments and we’ll be publishing a summary of each of the discussions tomorrow.
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