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Language Policies and Legal Action to Overcome Language Barriers in Education for non-EU member states long-term residents
Start date: Dec 1, 2011,

A pressing question of public policy in Europe today is the integration of that portion of the population deriving from migration, refugees and asylum seekers (non-EU member states long-term residents). Whether the outcome is successful will depend to a significant extent on their education that could serve as a bridge to participation in the host society. An important barrier is that their first language is nearly always not the language of instruction. Most of the time they do not have any knowledge of the language of instruction upon arrival in a EU Member State. Conventions, including the Convention on the Legal Status of Migrant Workers (CoE) and the EU Council Directive laying down minimum standards for the reception of asylum seekers, oblige receiving States to facilitate the teaching of its language and to provide the teaching of the migrants’ mother tongue. Member states have elaborated specific integration measures (eg. provision of interpreters in schools), school-based support measures (eg. teaching the host country language of instruction), school-based recognition of refugee (immigrant) culture (eg. measures to support the language and culture of origin). Oversight of the implementation of these obligations is provided by inspectors and other officials, while experienced directors and teachers may have only a superficial understanding of international norms. This may result in an inappropriate instruction.The proposed project contains 3 elements: (a) consultation with experts in the LLP countries on the present state of the protection of linguistic rights in schools at the compulsory education level. It will draw upon research done by researchers in a previous European IP project; (b) publication of the reports, comparative analysis, synthetic report, recommendations; and (c) a conference for members of the school inspectorate in LLP countries, European networks of teachers’ unions, ngo’s, policymakers, migration experts and advocacy groups.
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