Improving teaching to improve refugee education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Improving teaching to improve refugee education

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Integration of refugees; Access for disadvantaged; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Context/background:
The continuous wave of refugees arriving in Europe nowadays confront us with the need to make choices that go beyond the current emergency and implement systematic policies for resettlement and inclusion of refugee youth. European Union recently put into action several initiatives aimed to support the efforts of EU countries to integrate refugees in education systems. In this framework, the role of early childhood services and schools (and especially teachers), in collaboration with community services and NGOs, is vital to ensure widespread and effective educational support to refugee children.

Objectives:
To do so, European early childhood education (EC) services and schools have to develop deeper knowledge of the complex needs of refugee pupils. Research emphasises that a holistic educational approach can ensure effective enrolment and transition of refugee youth, and that teachers play a key role in implementing it. However, this poses a professional challenge to teachers, as Refugee Education (RE) cannot be considered just as a variation of the usual intercultural education programmes. Consequently, both future and in-service teachers need to receive specific training and continual professional development to cope with the new tasks involved in RE. Stemming from well-grounded experiences developed in countries with a longstanding tradition on RE, our proposal aims to design, implement, and disseminate an effective transnational training programme on RE addressed to preservice and in-service teachers. The project will create the following outputs:
– Report of understanding and resources in the field of refugee students’ education;
– Bank of existing good practices in RE teaching;
– Self-assessment tool addressed to map the dimensions of RE learning and participation in EC services and schools;
– Training programme addressed to improve teachers’ skills in RE as a part of their initial and continuing professional education courses;
– RE toolkit (Bank of good practices + Self-assessment tool + Training programme) aimed to spread and further develop RE in other EU countries;
– Laboratory of social development in RE, through the creation of an online collaborative and interactive platform and circulation provided through the RE Observatory, to ensure networking and continuing support for RE teaching improvement programmes.

Number and profile of participants:
The consortium is made up of 5 partners from 5 different countries and includes both countries in Central Europe (Austria) and Northern Europe (Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and the UK). It comprises HE institutions with extensive experience of both the object of this project and running international programmes. The research partners have staff with experience of successfully developing national and international projects in relation to RE. Moreover, each partner has significant managerial experience in a wide range of national and international projects related to educational research, policies and management, inclusive education, social analysis, and tutoring and guidance. The consortium is coordinated by the University of Aarhus, whose main line of research focuses on inclusive education, specifically on the tutoring, access and retention of disadvantaged students. University of Aarhus has collaborated to the design of several projects in relation to these topics in the last 5 years. Our proposal is also endorsed by several stakeholders in each partner country: nurseries, kindergartens, primary, lower secondary, and upper secondary schools, as well as health and social services and NGOs.

Description of activities, methodology, short description of the results and impact envisaged, potential longer term benefits:

The project is based on an articulated workflow of activities that implies:
− Carrying out a deep analysis of the different understandings of RE
− Creating a bank of existing good practices in RE teaching
− Developing a self-assessment tool for mapping RE learning and participation needs
− Designing and testing a training programme to improve preservice and in-service teachers’ skills in the field of RE
− Building a RE toolkit (Bank of good practices + Self-assessment tool + Training programme) to be disseminated and further developed in other EU countries
− Creating a Laboratory for social development in RE (Online interactive platform + Observatory) to ensure networking and continuing support for teaching improvement programmes for RE.
The desired impact at both local and international levels is double: 1) to increase the ability of EU countries to integrate refugee youth in education systems and ensure their skills development; and 2) to improve the quality and increase the volume of multilateral cooperation between Higher Education institutions, EC services, schools, and community stakeholders, creating a network able to further, also in the long run, the development of the social dimension of RE in Europe.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 440465 Eur

Project Coordinator

AARHUS UNIVERSITET & Country: DK

Project Partners

• HASKOLINN A AKUREYRI
• UNIVERSITY OF WINCHESTER
• UNIVERSITAT WIEN
• UNIVERSITETET I TROMSOE – NORGES ARKTISKE UNIVERSITET