In and Through Education: Education Trade Unions support the inclusion of refugees and migrants

ended

Following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, almost 6 million people have left Ukraine for neighbouring countries, majority of these refugees are women and children, adding to 12 million refugees already living in Europe. The 1951 UN Refugee Convention guarantees all refugees the right to education, however, refugees and migrants in general face a number of barriers in Europe that may prevent their successful inclusion into education. On other hand, such an influx of refugees and migrants means a heavy burden on the education systems in hosting countries, requiring a lot of additional resources, recruitment of education personnel including among refugees and migrants themselves, preparing all education personnel to implement inclusive education, to address the psychological traumas, etc. In the current context of the economic and social recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, these changes are especially challenging. Education trade unions play a key role in supporting refugees and migrants and their inclusion in the education system and the labour market, as well as providing the support and protecting the rights and working conditions of the education personnel in the hosting countries who face numerous challenges in that regard. Building on the findings of the previous social dialogue project on migrants in education, this project aims to further build the capacity of education trade unions to provide specific support to their affiliates regarding the inclusion of refugees and migrants in the education system with the view to contributing to long-term solutions: both regarding students and education personnel, as well as to scale up the topic of inclusion of refugees and migrants in education in the social dialogue on European, national and local levels. The project also seeks to address the specificities of the refugees from Ukraine, including the temporality of their status as the vast majority of them is planning to come back as soon as the war finishes.