Data on youth with migrant education dropout is dramatic.
The Sirius Network and the Migration Policy Institute have long studied this problem. What came out (2015) is the “early school leaving (ESL) rate of young people born outside of the European Union was, on average, more than double that of natives (25.4 percent compared to 11.5 percent)”.
Thus, in line with the general policy of the Erasmus+ Programme, the aim of this proposal is to having Youth with migrant background education high dropout rate reduced (General Objective). As for the specific objective, we want to develop a tool that supports students with migrant background, parents and teachers/trainers/youth workers dealing with youth with migrant background.
Which are the needs and target groups to be addressed?
As we said, information is very often partial information. Vocational teachers, professional trainers and youth workers often work in a “watertight classifications” mode on.
The reason behind this are many: no time, highly specialization, poor curiosity, etc.; therefore, we have started by considering that there is a lack of an integrated and holistic approach tool that supports students with migrant background, parents and teachers/trainers/youth (Specific Problem). Research, studies and our direct experience have pointed out that key issues in the above-mentioned specific problem lies in:
a) Students with migrant background are not sufficiently involved in the education process. They feel themselves more as an object rather than a subject (Problem Cause 1);
b) Busy migrant parents, especially those coming from disadvantaged contexts and countries, see their children education as another problem (and therefore delegate everything to teachers and trainers/youth workers). They rarely consider how a proactive attitude can help their children’s education performance (Problem Cause 2);
c) When it comes to organizations’ needs, teachers and trainers/youth workers have their own methodology and working methods which prevent them, often, to having a more mixed teaching/training approach to students with migrant background (Problem Cause 3).
As for the target groups, IHAVET have identified some of them the choosing of which is, somehow obligatory, due to the topic chosen. Parents, vocational school teachers and youth workers and trainers are a “natural” target as well as youth with migrant background organization. Policy makers committed to social inclusion are inherently interested to this project as well.
