School integration of child refugees and asylum seekers

12.1.2018

Question for oral answer O-000001/2018/rev.1
to the Council
Rule 128
Enrique Guerrero Salom, on behalf of the S&D Group

Altogether, there are at least 1.5 million children in need of international protection in the EU and Turkey. Most of these children have already missed on average two-and-a-half years of school in their home countries due to dramatic conflicts and violence. Moreover, bureaucratic procedures and delays in assessing their asylum applications can mean they miss three years or more of education, unequivocally threatening their integration and future opportunities, and exposing them to the risk of marginalisation and radicalisation.

The threat of large delays in access to education has prompted Parliament to demand – in the current trilogue on the recast of the Reception Conditions Directive – that access to the education system not be postponed for more than one month from the moment an application for international protection is made.

Education is a human right and it is secured by several international conventions. In addition, the Refugee Convention (Article 22) guarantees equal access to elementary education and ensures at least equal treatment with foreign citizens for other forms of education. EU law goes beyond these standards, stating in the Reception Conditions Directive (Article 14) that even before recognition, asylum seeker children should have access to education under similar conditions to national pupils within three months of lodging their asylum application. However, in EU Member States, access to education systems remains restricted. Child refugees risk spending months in one of Hungary’s transit zones, where there is no access to any kind of systematic education in practice. Those arriving in Greece will possibly remain outside of formal education in one of the Greek islands for several months. Even when they are finally settled in the EU Member States and can start attending formal education, they rarely receive sufficient support to bridge the gap to attend and succeed in regular classes.

Given that recent studies and evidence showcase that the legal requirement of access to education is currently not sufficiently enforced, what is the Council doing to ensure that the current three-month legal obligation is being put into practice? Considering the different speed at which Member States integrate child asylum seekers at school, what action does the Council envisage taking in order to harmonise the situation and ensure that all child asylum seekers in all EU Member States immediately receive education and language support and, three months after lodging their asylum application, are enrolled at school in accordance with current EU asylum law? With regard to the obligations and responsibilities resulting from the EU Facility for Refugees in Turkey, what is the Council doing to monitor and ensure the provision of equal access to compulsory education for asylum seekers and refugees in Turkey?