Description and assessment of main policies and programmes in place in the member states and recommendations for improvements

• Author: Bircan, Tuba; Lancker, Anne van; Nicaise, Ides
• Pages: 38-52

Target Group Discussion Paper Children with a Migrant Background

38

Description and assessment of main policies and

programmes in place in the Member States and

recommendations for improvements

4.1 Description and assessment of main policies to ensure adequate

nutrition and recommendations for improvements

Bradshaw and Rees (2019) classify policies relevant to this field of intervention into four

categories. First of all, income transfers should be adequate to cover all basic needs

including nutrition; secondly, children’s health should be monitored on a regular basis; a

third, more direct, type of intervention consists of subsidised meals in childcare centres or

schools as well as food distribution (e.g. through social restaurants or food banks); and a

fourth set includes awareness raising and public control (such as promotion of

breastfeeding, campaigns on feeding habits and healthy diets, training of professionals and

inspection of catering services).

These policies are mostly not specifically targeted at children with a migrant background.

Nevertheless, several specific priorities for migrant and refugee children were mentioned

in more than one country (Bradshaw and Rees, 2019), as follows.

• Improvements in the quality of food offered to migrant families and children in

camps, reception centres and in the asylum system (4 Country Reports).

• Improvements, or the cancellation of proposed reductions, in benefits and other

financial entitlements (4 Country Reports), and removal of barriers to employment.

Migrants and asylum-seekers often have no access to mainstream social security,

social assistance or tax benefits.

• Access to free or affordable meals in ECEC centres and schools for migrant and

refugee children (here again, migrant or refugee children are sometimes not

entitled – as mentioned in two Country Reports).

• Ensuring that food provision in schools and other public services is appropriate to

the needs and preferences of this group of children (mainly in terms of religious

prescriptions – mentioned in two Country Reports)57.

4.2 Description and assessment of main policies to ensure access to free

education and recommendations for improvements58

In the field of education, availability and accessibility are guaranteed for the vast

majority of the population. Yet problems persist in relation to migrant, asylum-seeking and

refugee children, due to their arrival during the course of the school year, their

resettlement within the host country, and language diversity. Responding flexibly to

unpredictable needs remains a big challenge. Too often, ho st countries’ response t o an

influx of asylum-seekers is sluggish, resulting in a waste of time and unnecessary

frustration (NL)59. Peripheral countries that receive disproportionate numbers of refugees

(EL, IT) are even completely overwhelmed and should receive more support from the EU.

Where enough schools are available, legal and practical barriers exist for many

undocumented children, especially when accessing non-compulsory aspects of education,

vocational training, etc.60

Desegregating schools is difficult. To begin with, governments must actively combat

discrimination in enrolment procedures. This is obviously more problematic in countries

with free school choice. Even legal provisions imposing a ‘first come, first served’ principle

do not appear to be very effective, because parents from higher socio-economic or

57 Obviously, the fact that specific issues were not mentioned in other Country Reports does not mean that

these issues are irrelevant to them – all the more so because the problems may apply to a wider range of TGs.

58 This section is based on the Policy Analysis paper on education in the context of the FSCG (Nicaise et al.,

2019).

59 See previous footnote.

60 PICUM (2015[2018]), Protecting undocumented children: Promising policies and practices from governments.