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CIRCLE

CIRCLE: InClusIon of Refugee ChiLdren in Education   

CIRCLE aims at supporting the inclusion of refugee/migrant children in good quality education and reducing their drop-out level.

Funded by: Erasmus+        Duration: 31/01/2019 – 30/1/2021   


Challenge

Children with migrant background across the EU tend to have lower educational performance and are more likely to leave school early compared to native children. These children either have been left out of the school environment for several years or have never been included in education.

Weak targeted education policies are not always well implemented or effective in practice. Few school systems make professional assessments of what newcomer children learned abroad (MIPEX 2015), and the way countries organize assessment procedures differs across Europe.

Assessing migrant/refugee children’s previous learning is a great challenge for the majority of EU host countries, as they usually hold no documentation of their previous school attainment and grades, and there are no available tools to assess their prior level of knowledge. Furthermore, psychological trauma, a difficult family situation and the lack of knowledge of the host countries’ languages are making it nearly impossible for these children to be included in the respective official educational systems.

Innovation

By developing tools and policies that will allow educational professionals to effectively assess and validate prior learning of newly arrived refugee/migrant primary and secondary school age  students, CIRCLE aims at supporting their inclusion in good quality education and reducing their drop-out level.

Action

The diagnostic tools are specifically designed for assessing the prior learning of newly arrived migrant/refugee primary and secondary school age children, with minimal host country (and/or English) language skills. The tools include different assessment methods and techniques (oral, written, visual), tailored to address challenges and needs faced by migrant/refugee children (minimal native and/or English language skills, cultural differences, psychological trauma etc.).

The mechanism enables the validation and certification of the learning of children with no school leaving certificates due to various reasons (dangerous travel, interrupted schooling etc.), and will also establish the equivalence of the main countries of origin school leaving certificates with the host countries certificates (for children holding school leaving certificates).

The validation and certification of the prior learning will further facilitate their enrollment to all levels of education (lower/upper secondary schools, vocational schools or even higher education) and also their employment opportunities in the future.

The policy recommendations aim at promoting the use of the developed tools to decision and policy makers in the field of education (and/or migrants integration), ensuring thus the scaling up/mainstreaming of the diagnostic assessment tools and mechanism for the validation and certification of prior learning of newly arrived migrant/refugee children in the education system and/or policy in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain.

Training (face-to-face and online) for educational leaders and educators (teachers, regional directors, school principals, school advisors/counsellors etc.) aims at building their competences and knowledge on how to use the diagnostic assessment tools and mechanism for the validation and certification of the prior knowledge of students with refugee background.

European Commission’s support for the production of this content does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Project Partners

KMOP – Social Action and Innovation Centre
(Project Coordinator)
Amadora Inovation (Portugal)
Asociacion Mar Violeta (Spain)
Eurotraining Educational Organization (Greece)
Municipio Da Amadora (Portugal)
The Regional Directorate of Primary and Secondary Education – Central Macedonia (Greece)
Provincia Di Livorno (Italy)
Provincia di Livorno Sviluppo (Italy)

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