The Arctic Centre at the University of Lapland is taking part to project which aim is to explore the measures aimed at improving participation and learning outcomes of children from a migrant background. The project outcome is to foresee an output such as a national charter, policy recommendations and annual reports to EU.

The four year project is under the partnership agreement with
the European policy network named Sirius and the Arctic Centre is one of the 28
partners from 18 different countries. The Arctic Centre’s part of the project is
hosted by the research group “Arctic Law and Governance” and it is led by the
Research Professor Timo Koivurova and vice-led by Nafisa Yeasmin.

– Our target is to find out both the national and regional barriers and
opportunities of schools in supporting the inclusion of refugee children and their
families by increasing awareness for educational accessibility. We will recommend
policy guidelines which are necessary in order to assess the effectiveness of
provisions for ensuring inclusive education in the school, says Nafisa
Yeasmin.

– We will indeed focus on the tension that exists
between the requirements of the minority discrimination legislation and the way
school leaders make decisions about the inclusion of students with minorities in
Finnish schools. The democratic governance process of inclusion will be discussed
between stakeholders in our roundtables for policy briefing, Research Professor Timo
Koivurova mentioned.

The project will produce an annual
Shadow report, which would aim to analyze challenges and highlight recent
developments in the field of inclusive migrant education. Shadow reports will also
aim to identify key policy pointers to address existing challenges in the field of
migrant education. The project will be focusing on national and international
roundtables, peer learning activities, annual plenary meetings and dissemination of
activities. The project is targeted contributing to content development for the
European Commission and identify, share and promote good policy practices.

The project is funded by EAC/S28/2016. The total budget of a
network is about 400,000.00 € for year 2017 and for the Arctic Centre maximum of
15,000.00 € for each year.

More
information:

Framework partnership agreement
with a European Policy network in the field of education of children and young
people with a migrant background: http://www.sirius-migrationeducation.org/projects/framework-partnership-agreement-with-a-european-policy-network-in-the-field-of-education-of-children-and-young-people-with-a-migrant-background/

Nafisa Yeasmin
Arctic Centre, University of
Lapland
+358 40 484 4256, nafisa.yeasmin(at)ulapland.fi