Ei-iE

The people seeking refuge in Europe are among the thousands driven from their homes every year in fear of their lives because of violent conflict, political and economic instability, natural disasters, or extreme poverty.

These are the root causes, which must be addressed as a matter of urgency, by the United Nations and all of its member states.

Crisis situations that lead to the movement and displacement of such great numbers of people require comprehensive, collective and sustainable European and global responses that protect the rights of every single person.

Dramatic humanitarian crisis require responsibility and solidarity. Education International (EI) reminds national governments and international institutions to respect internationally agreed human rights standards. We call on all governments to increase public investment in quality public services and to ensure these are accessible to all citizens including newly arrived refugees.

Displaced people are being met either with support, indifference and/or hostility depending on the attitude of the respective local authorities, media and citizens. In the face of this urgent and dire situation, education unions in many countries have declared themselves ready to work with national and international institutions in order to organise and guarantee the provision of quality education and training to migrants and refugees by qualified personnel.

Although the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights is very clear about the fact that migrants, refugees and displaced people should be treated equally and with dignity (“ All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”, says article 1, while article 7 states that “ All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law”), few general guidelines are yet being implemented. Instead, individual governments are adopting hasty ad hoc policies to no avail.

Urgent need for an institutional and right-based framework

Strong qualified public services are a pre-condition for States to ensure that the full rights of refugees and migrants are respected. In addition to a first phase in which basic needs have to be guaranteed, comprising shelter, sanitation, food, clothes and health, other immediate needs will quickly arise, ranging from full social protection to the access to education, training and decent employment.

Over half of the world's refugees are children. Following the influx of Syrian families and unaccompanied minors to Jordan and Lebanon, child labour has considerably risen in those countries. Therefore displaced populations have to be especially protected against exploitation.

Governments have to ensure refugees’ right to education

“National governments and the international community should be explicitly obliged to ensure that the right to education is a reality for all children and young people,” underlines EI’s General Secretary Fred van Leeuwen. “Richer countries should contribute more to fulfil the spirit of their international commitments and obligations to meeting the needs of refugee and displaced children, which includes access to education.”

The Rights Policy Paper adopted by Education International states that “governments have a responsibility, derived from the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to provide the same right to education to all children, on the basis of equal opportunity. Special attention needs to be given to vulnerable children, including migrant, internally displaced, orphaned, asylum seeking or refugee children. All people have a right to free, equitable, inclusive and quality public education of 12 years, of which at least 9 years should be compulsory.”

Education International also adopted two resolutions on migration issues: The right to education for displaced people, refugee and stateless children and Migration, professional diversity and racism. Those resolutions promote general principles of “access to education for all people including those displaced by conflict or natural disasters” and state that “migrant teachers should enjoy the right to dignity at work, free from any form of discrimination”.

The EI resolutions are a strong call for action, that include:

• ensuring that the problem of the language of schooling is not an obstacle for refugees;
• providing support and assistance to education unions in countries where there are large numbers of refugees and displaced children;
• pressuring governments and international institutions to prioritise financial assistance for the education of refugees and internally displaced people, especially in states having a common border with a country in conflict and welcoming a very important number of them;
• supporting the work of member organisations in promoting equality for migrant teachers.

Only 49 countries have ratified the ILO Convention 97 on Employment and Migration. Eleven countries from the European Union have ratified it, but five have abstained from the appendices. Twenty nine countries have ratified the ILO Convention 143 on Migrant Workers. See the interactive map for more details.