Education 4 remigrants

The project focused on social and educational reintegration and inclusion of remigrant pupils (children coming back to their native country after a period spent abroad with the intention of migration), as international researches (Valtolina, 2013) shows that the school performance of remigrant pupils is decreasing after returning in their native country compared with the performance in the country of migration and remigrant children experience psychological and educational difficulties after returning “home”. The partnership developed through this project a general strategy for the educational system to implement in order to facilitate the re-adaptation after returning home, including research data and theoretical background, training methodology and optional courses, handbooks. Those tools address all the educational actors (school management, teachers, parents, pupils, teachers trainers) and allow schools to organize coherent activities based on a general intervention strategy. The project focused on supporting schools to tackle early school leaving by providing schools the necessary tools to be integrated in their general strategy of preventing dropout in the remigrant population. During the project, the partners developed 6 intellectual outputs (research regarding methodological information for teachers working with remigrants, theoretical materials on the effects of remigration, training methodology for teachers trainers, optional course for facilitating the reintegration of remigrants, handbook for teachers and handbook for pupils), tested and validated through two joint staff training events, one focusing on formal education, one focusing on non-formal education, integrating both methodologies in the outputs of the project; 23 trainers and teachers from the partner organization participated to at least one of those trainings, developing their skills in using the resources developed through the project and in integrating them into their current activities. The primary target groups of the project were: remigrant children; teachers, especially class masters, irrespective of their specialization; school counsellors and other experts in school education; school management and policy makers in school education; educational researchers; teachers trainers; parents of the remigrant pupils. The secondary target groups of the project were: native children (children that never migrated) and parents of the native children; as the educational activities proposed through this project were designed to be implemented with the hole class group, native pupils (and their parents) could benefit from this project even if they are not necessary targeted. In the follow-up period, the partners organized training for teachers and school counsellors, trainings for trainers and informative activities for pupils in order to promote the utility and efficiency of the intellectual outputs of the project and to develop the professional skills needed for active usage of those resources. Through this project, the partnership provided: increased access to specific educational methodology and tools to facilitate the reintegration of remigrants and tackle early school leaving in the remigrant population; increased access to education and social inclusion for remigrant children; increased access to training for teachers and other specialists working with remigrant children; good practice examples that schools could adapt to tackle other educational needs of other specific target groups; encouraging initiative to develop and implement innovation in education. Staff involved in the project improved their competences linked to professional profiles as teachers and teachers trainers, especially regarding the integration of remigrant children in education and preventing early school leaving in the remigrant population. Organizations involved in the project developed innovative approaches for addressing their target groups, by providing new practices to cater for the needs of disadvantaged groups, assisting the remigrants in their reintegration efforts. Through this project, teachers and school counsellors gained increased capacity to facilitate the re-adaptation of remigrant children and prevent early school leaving, by using the strategy developed during the project; teachers trainers increased their capacity to design and implement quality trainings and to develop teachers abilities to integrate the remigrants and remigrant children increased their capacity to involve themselves in their reintegration process; better knowledge and understanding of their specific needs.