Giving Compass' Take:

• Education for migrant children needs to be a priority for the EU, or else these children will have sustained gaps in their learning.

• How can philanthropists across the globe help partner with initiatives in Europe to ensure high-quality engagement in education?

• Read the Giving Compass Refugee guide for donors. 

As summer drew to a close, most children headed back to school. Ensuring children are enrolled, have all their books and supplies needed for classes, are signed up for extracurricular activities, and are back in their school routine can be both exciting and exhausting for children and parents.

In 2017, 650,000 people applied for asylum in the EU, of which 31 percent were children under the age of 18. Of these minors, 13 percent were unaccompanied by a caregiver.

Education is also vital for helping children integrate into their new community as participation in educational activities helps improve language skills and social cohesion among young people, combats child poverty and fosters participation in the host society.

Yet, attending school programmes remains a challenge for many of the unaccompanied minors across Europe. For instance, enrolment of many migrant children to public schools can be delayed between three to six months in various member states, migrant children do not receive additional language support or they do not have opportunities to interact with local children as they are required to attend schools in separate classes for an undetermined period of time.

However, there are also positive examples of practices supporting migrant children and unaccompanied minors. Some approaches focus on teachers and teaching, such as the UNICEF supported programmes created to train teachers to work with refugees and migrant children in Croatia, or the introduction of 'cultural mediators' to assist children with their community engagement in the UK.

Yet, despite many approaches and initiatives adopted across the EU, a number of challenges remain concerning the development of effective long-term measures for migrant children. Ensuring that migrant children will not face a sustained gap in their education in their transition to adulthood will require more effort.

Read the full article about the education for migrant children by Barbara Janta at RAND