Challenges faced by the young migrants

Such challenges include but not limited to socio-economic status, native culture bias, accomplishment, and language barrier. These are often complex and overlapping. In this section, these will be examined to see how relevant policies addressing them.

The lower level of education

Collected figures show, in European countries, the academic progress of the migrant children is very disappointing in comparison to those of native children. There are:

1. Due to the lack of socio-economic resources, including a lower academic background of parents, migrant children find them in a significantly disadvantaged position. The PISA data analyzed by the OECD show that it is not the high school population but lower socio-economic status negatively influences the academic performance of migrant children.
2. Due to migratory status, migrant children are often discriminated in the school and classroom. Both curricula and assessment tests are biased due to strong cultural bias to the majority. Besides, migrant children are often given a negative or severer penalty.
3. Inadequate support from the state, regional and local actors also sends migrant children to back-foot.

Other causes include but not limited to language barriers, emotional (psychosomatic) barriers, low expectation and negligence from parents and teachers, lack of family and community support, and limited funding support.

Improvement of under-performing schools and referring migrant students to special education can reduce the gap.

Language barriers

Limited or no command of the native language is the main reason behind the low academic performance by migrant students. Because of the language barrier, they cannot integrate themselves in the mainstream. Moreover, for this same reason, their parents cannot support them in their learning process either.

Research of OECD conducted in 2010 showed that due to the language barrier, migrant students significantly fell behind the natives. The test results also vindicate the fact. It shows that those who do not speak the language of instruction at home score lower than those who do. However, migrant children who speak the language of instruction at home still score lower due to other reasons, such as socio-cultural factors. However, in general, the language barrier is the single most important factor.

Social isolation and early school living

Psychological factors, such as prejudice, exclusion, and isolation limit the trust and cooperation between the migrants and the natives, which in turn, sends the previous ones to passivity and hopelessness. The consequences are low academic performance, higher school dropping rates, etc. Thus, migrant students are marginalized in the society in their adulthood inhibiting the progress towards an inclusive inter-cultural society.

Identifying the issues - focusing on migrant children

Across European countries, the norms, values, and experiences of the natives dominantly present in the overall school practices including curricula or textbooks, however, migrants’ experiences are absent or distorted. This fact lowers the self-esteem of migrant students and puts negative impacts on their school achievements.

The proportion of migrant and native children varies highly in European schools. Therefore, there is no golden bullet to hit away all the issues overnight but school authorities may adopt the intercultural policy for the betterment of both communities.

Dedicating resources for migrant children education

It is a common approach to allot extra resources (such as funds) for schools where migrant students are proportionately high. The logic behind this is twofold. First, additional resources may help these schools to get in reach of progressive ones. Second, extra resources would provide them with flexibility in catering to the needy students.

The fund can be intended for either all disadvantaged children in general or for the migrant students specifically. Who should be managing the funds is also an issue in ensuring proper funding.  It is also an issue to provide resources in early education because there is evidence that returns on investment, in this case, is the highest.  

Addressing linguistic and cultural differences between schools and migrant families

The communication gap between due to linguistic and cultural differences is the most important challenge is in integrating migrant children into the mainstream. One of the popular approaches to minimize this gap is to provide information in the mother languages of migrant families. About two-thirds of EU Member States adopted this approach.  

Another way to address the communication gap is to use interpreters. It is a statutory right for migrant families in some countries while it is not compulsory in other countries. However, central authorities often encourage using interpreters. Generally, the national or regional public authorities bear the cost of using interpreters, but in different cases; the school authorities bear the cost. Sometimes, volunteers and teachers who know the language of the migrant families act as interpreters. Migrant children are also used as interpreters.

The third option is to use resource persons to liaise between migrant families and schools. Such a person may be from the school staff or the central or local education authorities. Such persons help students to adapt and integrate to the school environment and support teachers in the educational activities. 

Approaches to learning the host country language(s)

Language learning is a crucial part of education policy. According to the OECD report of 2016, language learning can facilitate the integration of immigrant students. Here language learning means to learn the local European languages while maintaining the migrant languages.

Language support is effective in early childhood as it improves school readiness. Those children who received language support before entering primary school could achieve similar reading and writing skills as native children. To this end, special systematic support is needed. But in many cases, withdrawal of migrant pupils from mainstream classes ended up negatively. Therefore, in appropriate cases, effective language support within the regular class instruction should be considered.

What are the characteristics of successful programs contributing to language learning?

The characteristics are as follows:

1.      The courses are prepared in line with the national curriculum;

2.      Language support should be provided only by the mentors and teachers who received training in second-language acquisition;  

3.      It should give high-quality support to the learners; and

4.      Language learning should continue up to the secondary level.

Measures to learn and maintain home language(s) 

Proficiency in their mother tongue is equally important for migrant students. Language support should also contribute to this end. Researchers have shown that bilingualism/multilingualism contributes to cognitive skills and flexibility of thinking; it is also important for both intercultural education and intercultural society as well. Therefore, in many European countries, mother language tuition is provided either as a school-based activity or as an extracurricular lesson.

Building partnerships with parents of migrant children

Special support may also be provided to parents of migrant students because it can contribute to the improvement of their school performance and acculturation with the native ones. But, due to language barriers, weak knowledge of the educational practices, or a lack of money or time, parents of migrant children less likely to contact the school authorities. Therefore, school authorities should proactively contact with them and provide support through home visits or other events. Besides, the school authorities or public bodies should ensure a welcoming environment so that the communication becomes effective and the support programs become fruitful.

Wider policies supporting migrant children

For successful integration and improvement of school performance of migrant students, researchers argue that European and national level anti-discrimination laws and policies are necessary. Migrant parents and students should have the right and opportunity to report any discrimination to the competent authority.

Researchers have found that migrant students perform better in those countries where economic inequality is low. Therefore, initiatives are necessary to minimize the economic inequality between the migrants and the natives. Some EU Member States have already undertaken various actions towards the integration of migrant children within the school community.