In a world where mobility and migration are a key factor of our societies, the inclusion of newcomers remains a priority. The European Commission launched an open public consultation to gather inputs on the issue of integration and inclusion of migrants and people with a migrant background, for which the LLLPlatform has submitted an entry.
The Lifelong Learning Platform (LLLP) believes that education and lifelong learning have the unique potential to unlock human capacities, both individually and collectively; as such, we promote the vision of a society based on universal access to quality inclusive education, transversal and holistic lifelong learning approach, as well as lifelong and lifewide learning.
On this account, LLLP holds that for migrants and people with a migrant background to be successfully integrated and socially included means that they have access to the same rights and services than nationals (equal access to education, housing, health care, labour market, etc.); it means that they are not discriminated against, in any aspect of their lives, on the basis of their ethnicity, religious beliefs, cultural background, language spoken, gender, sexual orientation, etc.
This far-reaching and ambitious goal shall be achieved through a whole education and training approach that takes into consideration the needs, talents, skills, desires and mindset of individual learners (including their backgrounds) as well as the need to ensure learning is accessible at all stages of their lives, and where all actors are actively involved.
Therefore, and towards this end, the European Union should encourage the implementation of well-evidenced, harmonised, and effective measures for the recognition of all forms of learning (formal, non-formal, and informal) that would enable newcomers to 1) overcome such a barrier and 2) enjoy their rights to education and lifelong learning.
At the same time, the EU should invest massively to reinforce, upscale and transfer the existing good practices. With education stakeholders front and central in future strategies, the potential of education as the best tool for integration and inclusion will finally be unlocked.