We just talk about the good stuff

The International Education Association of Australia has launched a campaign to “educate and inform” the wider Australian community of the benefits that international education and students bring to the country.

It will champion the economic and cultural development contribution of the sector, while sharing stories of international students pairing with Australian businesses and communities to “enrich our economic and cultural life”, the organisation said.

As the country’s fourth-highest export generating industry – and the export that is commonly noted at Australia’s largest that “doesn’t come out of the ground” – IEAA is hoping to clarify that “international education isn’t a commodity”.

“International education supports communities and nurtures knowledge,” said Phil Honeywood, CEO of IEAA.

“International students teach us how to dance”

“International students pay their tuition, earn their qualifications and underpin outstanding research. They also help put food on our tables, care for our loved ones, and teach us how to dance. International students help Australia thrive.”

The sector is showing a “strong post-Covid recovery” as it returns to 2019 levels when the sector delivered over $40 billion to the Australian economy and supported over 240,000 Australian jobs, IEAA noted. In 2022, the overall number of international students in the country was some 137,342 fewer than in 2019.

The new campaign has seen co-investment from Study NSW and Study Queensland.

Three international students – Jerry from Jakarta, Ralph from Dubai and Patti from Bangkok – feature in the campaign.

Jerry organised students to help pick fruit that was left in the orchards due to labour shortages, Ralph works in aged care, while Patti works as a mental health counsellor teaches community dance classes.

A 2021 survey that IEAA carried out with Education New Zealand found that attitudes towards international students by Australian and New Zealand citizens changed during the pandemic.

The greatest change in attitudes was in relation to practical hardships associated with living away from home and social isolation, it found.

However, it concluded more structured peer-to-peer support should be introduced by institutions in order to allow domestic students to learn about the experiences of international students “through their studies or other contact with their institution”.

It is not uncommon for industry leaders in study destinations to be faced with challenges around international students being perceived as taking opportunities from domestic students – and this is a perception that the campaign is seeking to clarify.

“Often there’s pushback in Australia from domestic students about too many international students being in the lecture theatre,” Honeywood recently told The PIE.

“Our IEAA public relations campaign will educate and inform the wider Australian community on everything international education does for Australia.”

In focus groups ahead of the launch, a perception was still that “international students took their children’s jobs, took their children’s university places, which is not reality”, he added.

The Help Australia Thrive theme promotes that “these young people are actually helping Australia be better off socially, economically, in so many different ways”.

“Some in the sector say that that campaign is probably 20 years overdue, but we’ve invested AUS$0.5m as an association and hopefully will get some momentum.”

IEAA is also hoping to promote the idea of overseas studies to Australian students. Over 380,000 Australians studied abroad between 2009 and 2019 and one in four undergraduate students undertook studies overseas in 2019.

“Every student, whether coming to study or leaving to learn from the world, helps Australia thrive,” the association added.

The post IEAA reveals Help Australia Thrive! campaign appeared first on The PIE News.

Canada has announced temporary rules to open training and education opportunities to individuals on work visas the same day a new company offering financial support to immigrants to study launched.

A former CEO of ApplyBoard has revealed a new venture seeking to help immigrants to Canada the financial solutions needed to access critical jobs in the country.

Passage has attracted C$40 million (US$30m) in seed funding, making it one of the biggest seed funding raises ever in Canada, and is being led by Martin Basiri, who started ApplyBoard in 2015 with his brothers Massi and Meti.

It was launched at the Collision tech conference in Toronto the same day as the government announced a temporary measure that removes the limit on the length of the study programs that temporary foreign workers can enrol onto without the need for a study permit.

Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Sean Fraser, said the three-year temporary measure – beginning immediately – will allow foreign workers to study while working on courses lasting longer than six months.

Those individuals will no longer need a separate study permit for longer courses, meaning they will be able to improve their education, receive more training or upskill or validate their foreign credentials, according to the government.

“With this policy in place, we hope to empower foreign nationals to improve their skills in order to meet their career goals and achieve their dreams, while providing a future potential source of talent for our labour market,” Fraser said.

He highlighted that it would allow foreign-trained doctors and nurses to support Canada’s healthcare system, as well as provide paths for construction labourers to become tradespersons and build new homes.

“This immigration measure helps employers, workers, and our economy by addressing critical labour shortages”

“This immigration measure helps employers, workers, and our economy by addressing critical labour shortages. This is welcome news for all parties involved,” he said.

Passage is seeking to “match talented immigrants to life-changing educational and career opportunities” in Canada, Basiri continued.

“At a time when our country struggles to fill critical jobs in STEM, bioscience, manufacturing, cybersecurity, health care, trades, and more, we know that there is a pool of dedicated talent globally who wish to study and work in Canada yet lack the financial means to do so,” Basiri stated.

“Our mission at Passage is to provide access to life changing educational and career opportunities.”

It aims to “empower” immigrants by matching their talents with the “most crucial workforce needs”, before working to provide financial solutions and connect them to logistical support they will need, he added.

The platform will seek financial institutions to fund immigrants before they arrive in Canada. According to an interview with The Globe and Mail, that will be based on their credit profile at home and also future earning potential in Canada – similar to MPOWER and Prodigy Finance. The former recently partnered with Goldman Sachs on a US$150m educational loan facility.

The new seed funding round is led by Drive Capital, with the VC firm saying the backing is “an investment in Canada’s future”.

“With thousands of jobs sitting unfilled in the economy, affecting goods and services Canadians need, Canada is facing a socio-economic crisis that must be addressed,” said Nick Solaro, partner at Drive Capital.

“Martin and his talented team are doing just that. Passage will serve the best talent in the world – while also serving Canada.”

The first round will allow Passage to build out its operational capacity and further develop its technological platform. Passage’s first pilot project will seek to help more than 100 female-identifying students from Afghanistan access STEM education opportunities in Canada.

The post C$40m for education finance platform as Canada lifts study permit rule appeared first on The PIE News.

An agent whose business partner had already been arrested for his role in a fake admission letter scam in Canada has now also been arrested and charged.

Brijesh Mishra, who reentered Canada on an unconfirmed date in the week beginning June 19, was arrested by the Canada Border Services Agency – authorities laid five charges against him on June 23.

The charges, which all come under the Immigration Refugees Protection Act, include one count of “Unauthorised Representation or Advice for Consideration” – under Section 91, which directly deals with licensing of immigration consultants; one count of “Counselling Misrepresentation”; one count of “Misrepresentation (Direct or Indirect)”; one count of “Misrepresentation (Communicating False Information)”; and one count of “Non-Compliance with the Act”.

The regional director general for the pacific region of the CBSA, Nina Patel, said in a statement that officers “worked diligently to investigate these offences” and will continue to do so.

“The charges announced today by the CBSA’s Pacific Region Criminal Investigations Section reflect our commitment to maintaining the integrity of Canada’s immigration system,” Patel said on June 23.

The move to charge Mishra comes after his business partner, Rahul Bhargava, was arrested in April and it was announced they were also searching for Mishra and another individual, Gurnam Singh.

No update has been provided on the whereabouts or possible apprehension of Singh.

“Is [the minister] doing this because he’s being forced to make an example?”

As a result of the alleged actions of Singh, Mishra and Bhargava, students were extremely close to being deported from Canada after it was discovered that their acceptance letters had been forged. Initial reports suggested that up to 700 individuals were at risk of being deported, but the government said a total of 82 had been referred to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada by June 15.

It was only spotted when the students were attempting to apply for permanent residency, having been in Canada since 2017 and 2018.

Colleges and Institutes Canada told The PIE that while it “fully acknowledges the potential vulnerabilities” students face with some unethical recruitment practices, they “don’t represent the entire agent community”.

“Our members take great care to ensure that agents accurately represent their institutions and the Canadian college system. They are committed to promoting ethical recruitment practices and safeguarding the interest of international students,” a representative said.

“CICan is pleased to be working with IRCC and Global Affairs Canada to identify the root causes of these vulnerabilities and explore how colleges can strengthen recruitment practices while also enhancing the integrity and clarity of Canada’s immigration processes through better sharing of information and more targeted promotional efforts in new markets,” it added.

CBIE also said it intends to work with its global counterpart associations to “get clearer insight into how international education consultants operate and how to tackle emerging issues of common interest or concern”.

“CBIE has long advocated for a whole-of-government and sector-wide approach to ensure Canada is delivering the true value of what is promised to international students,” a spokesperson from the Canadian Bureau of International Education told The PIE.

“Canada is not alone in having to deal with the consequences of unscrupulous education consultants,” the spokesperson pointed out. Australia has been dealing with issues surrounding agent legitimacy in the first six months of 2023, while the UK’s home secretary has said there will be a clampdown on “unscrupulous education agents” who are selling “immigration not education”.

The Canadian minister of public safety and former minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Marco Mendicino, said that the government is “taking action against those who are responsible for fraud, while protecting those who’ve come here to pursue their studies”.

“Canada is not alone in having to deal with the consequences of unscrupulous education consultants”

“I want to thank CBSA’s criminal investigators for their hard work protecting Canadians and those who hope to come here,” Mendicino added.

Earl Blaney, who runs The Canada Network, and has long advocated for more stringent regulation of both agents and uncapped international student admissions, spoke with The PIE News amid the report of the arrest and charges.

“To be clear, there have been charges under Section 91 before, but I don’t think anyone has been convicted – a couple of cases fell apart due to poor documentation for evidence. I’m interested to know what the precedent is in terms of a judge actually finding guilt. This case, as it stands, is a really rare occurrence,” Blaney explained.

“My concern is how often they’re actually looking at people like this – which, clearly, is not often. Is this a one off? Because the minister does not look good for allowing this to go on and not catching it until now.

“Is he doing this because he’s being forced to make an example, or is this a legitimate sense of some kind of credible enforcement going forward?” Blaney posited.

The case has caused some disquiet in the Canadian parliament. In mid-June, a debate saw some Conservative parliament members essentially weaponise the situation, saying the developments were the direct result of “incompetence of the Liberal party”.

The post Agent in fake doc scheme arrested and charged after reentering Canada appeared first on The PIE News.

Language provider English Path has acquired NCG Dublin in Ireland as it seeks to profit from what it sees as increased interest in the country.

The acquisition of NCG Dublin, for an undisclosed fee, is the latest move for the provider which launched in Dubai in 2021 by higher education specialist GEDU Global Education. In 2022, English Path opened a location in Malta.

In total the English Path network includes, nine language schools in five major cities across the UK, as well as institutions in Malta, Canada and the United Arab Emirates.

“After the Brexit vote there has been an increased interest in moving outside of the UK and maintaining access to the European Union,” English Path managing director, Mike Summerfield, noted.

“We see Dublin as one of the main destinations for students and believe we can build on the success of NCG Education Dublin in the coming years. We are excited to work with the team at the school and take the school to new heights.”

Former owner of the school in Dublin’s coastal suburb of Dún Laoghaire noted that the centre has seen a strong rebound following the pandemic.

“We see Dublin as one of the main destinations for students”

“We took over the school six years ago, and saw strong growth pre-Covid,” said Sadiq Basha, who is also CEO & founder of New College Group, as well as Edvoy.

“While Covid impacted us significantly in the past year we have seen a strong recovery and in fact student numbers are the highest they have ever been.

“I believe the acquisition by English Path will provide great impetus for the school to continue to grow and I look forward to seeing where they will take the school in the future.”

Ireland is facing a housing crisis which has seen record numbers of people in emergency accommodation this year, which has also impacted the international education sector.

The school originally launched in the 1970s as Dublin Language Centre and already has an established network of host families, Summerfield added.

“We will be adding student residence and shared apartment accommodation options in the coming months,” he noted.

More English Path destinations and programs are also set to be announced in the coming months, the company added.

The post ELT: English Path expands to Ireland appeared first on The PIE News.

British students can be international students too. I know because I was one.

As a student of modern languages back in the day, I was lucky to spend my ‘Year Abroad’ as a teaching assistant near Frankfurt in Germany, before going to Berlin as an Erasmus student during the third year of my PhD.

My early research career was thoroughly international too, having received a Commonwealth Scholarship to undertake postdoctoral research in Canada for a year, before being funded by the Berlin Parliament for another project back in the German capital.

My international education and research experience is a major part of what has shaped me, and it is what drives me as a sector leader today to stand up for the many international students choosing to make the UK part of their own educational journeys.

Nowadays, whenever I speak about my previous international education experiences, I am usually met with comments about the amazing opportunities I have had and how much I must have learned by immersing myself in other languages and cultures. Nobody has ever questioned the burden I may have created for the German or Canadian taxpayers, or whether my being in those countries was contributing to unnecessary immigration.

One reason for that is that outward mobility is still, sadly, somewhat of a novelty here in the UK, so those going abroad for extended periods of study tend to be viewed with curiosity and fascination.

Another reason is the uncomfortable truth that, in Britain, we are generally not accustomed to seeing ourselves as immigrants, especially unwanted immigrants. So, whenever we look skeptically at the rising numbers of international students coming to our shores, we have to remember we are no more entitled to a free pass into other countries and their education systems than their citizens are to ours.

A third reason is that I clearly came back. Like most international students, I chose to return to my ‘home’ country after my various stints of international study, bringing my knowledge, contacts and experiences back to bear as part of my career progression in the UK.

However, the reason I have those experiences is because both Germany and Canada generously opened their doors to me and provided me with not only a great education, but lifelong memories and friendships. That’s why they retain a special place in my heart, and I shall always look upon them and their citizens favourably in any future interactions. This is the ‘soft power’ legacy of my international higher education.

Working as I do today, then, to promote higher education in the UK and specifically in London, it is comforting to know that, at the end of their placements or courses, the many thousands of international students who come to Britain each year will likely head back home with the same sense of gratitude and affection for the UK as I feel for my former host countries.

And, like mine, their social networking sites will be full of contacts they made while at UK universities from across the globe. Many of these will be fellow international students, as well as local residents, and some will perhaps turn out to be useful business contacts or strategic partners in the future.

The benefits of international education are lifelong, irrespective of whether we are outbound visitors to other countries or opening our own doors to inward international student flows.

In the UK, we rightly celebrate the massive economic gains that international students bring to our nation, which now stand at an impressive £37 billion of net benefit generated by each new cohort of first-year overseas students, or £9.6 billion from international students in London alone.

“We must not overlook the hidden economic benefits that also arise from the lifelong contacts borne from international education exchanges”

Yet, we must not overlook the hidden economic benefits that also arise from the lifelong contacts borne from international education exchanges. These could include future cross-border commercial projects, international research collaborations or even transnational business growth – and, at the very least, they maintain demand for future international travel and tourism, as lifelong friendships are nurtured and personal milestones such as weddings, christenings and reunions are celebrated.

International education is but a starting point to future possibilities, not just for individuals but for governments, businesses and national economies. If we viewed those international students that choose to study among us with the same admiration and respect as we give those from our own society opting to study overseas, we might just recognise the enormous potential we otherwise take for granted from our truly international communities.

#WeAreInternational

About the author: Diana Beech is chief executive officer of London Higher.

The post Germany and Canada retain a special place in my heart, education overseas is a starting point appeared first on The PIE News.

While AI and machine learning are still big factors driving the edtech sector forward, the industry is still waiting for its “5G moment”, it was declared at a conference.

During the EdTechX summit, held at Tobacco Dock in London on June 22, CEO and co-founder Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet said that while strides have been made, the last 10 years have only been a “warm-up” era.

“The edtech we know today is very much in its infancy. In a way, we’re waiting for our 5G moment in edtech, 10 years is also a very short investment cycle,” Vedrenne-Cloquet told delegates.

“[In the current climate] it’s really hard to get back in with generous investors. In edtech, all of them are being burned by what they call the great crash. It’s been one of the worst industries to invest in the past four years.

“And a lot of investors are now spooked by the rise of AI as a massive disrupter to the unicorns of the last decade,” he continued.

The PIE spoke with delegates to gauge what the relationship of AI after the 10-year “warm-up era” – and a common thread showed that AI is not the threat to education that some have made it out to be.

Gregor Müller, founder of tutoring edtech startup GoStudent, said that the idea of merging offline and online will be more and more common – and a shift is coming.

“[Covid] was one big shift because now online is primary and it changed a lot, slowly, but it did. This step, right now, is where it starts to get much more personalised, where it starts to get much more productive.

“A lot of things that the teachers have spent a lot of time on, for adolescent grade exams, all these things that take time and take time off focusing on the kids can be much faster with AI,” Müller told The PIE.

It comes as GoStudent recently launched its own shot into the future with its new GoVR platform.

AI, of course, isn’t just affecting classrooms, but other areas of the sector too. Duncan Mitchinson, chief revenue officer at Accredible, said that AI’s explosion was the reason so many people entered the edtech space – and why the so-called crash occurred in the first place.

“I think we haven’t quite found the synergy. It feels like everyone’s obsessive over AI at the moment,” he said, speaking with The PIE.

“My fear is that with that we’re seeing the quality outcomes for the individuals be lowered; yes, there’s more choice, which is great.

“But the ability for us to say, ‘I can just go and create a course anywhere and anyone can’ and then suddenly declare, ‘Hey, you’re certified in this now’ is scary to me because, maybe people don’t care about the weight of the brand or the institution anymore.

“I think the barrier to entry is both a blessing and a curse,” Mitchinson posited.

“My fear is that with that we’re seeing the quality outcomes for the individuals be lowered”

Multiple delegates agreed with Vedrenne-Cloquet’s ascertainment that the edtech sector, on the whole, has been extremely slow to adapt.

Marie Jaksman, who works for Futuclass, a VR chemistry tool used by schools across the UK, US and Australia – and a number of schools in the company’s native Estonia – said that the pandemic, despite the challenges it brought to the entire international education sector, was the necessary boost.

“The pandemic really pushed us to work on our tech… it was a really aggressive incentive for not only teachers, but students – and I think they’re now more adaptable – they enjoy innovative solutions and trying new things because of it,” Jaksman said.

“Covid certainly accelerated things, especially around funding and resources that went into education. Up until Covid, there was also his perception of, ‘how big even is the market?’” Müller explained.

“Every country has such a different system and in a lot of countries, it’s state driven. And through Covid, investors were saying this market must be huge and it’s scalable since it’s online – and we had to go online, so now it’s worth putting money into it.

“That helped a lot of young companies, a lot of products over there to get their foot off the ground, to get some initial funding – and now a lot of them are going through difficult times again, but initially Covid pushed it along,” Müller added.

Vedrenne-Cloquet and IBIS Capital founder and CEO Charles McIntyre, made an introduction for delegates to the idea of OI: Organoid Intelligence, which aims, instead of making artificial brains, to augment the use of the human brain itself.

“There’s going to be a bit of a push back on tech in general”

Delegates, however, were unconvinced how OI would work in practice in their edtech businesses, and it’s certainly not the “5G moment” the sector has been waiting for.

“I think this is just another revolution of technology. It’s happened before. 10 years ago, I talked to Siri. Right now, you can talk to Chat GPT,” said Cicy Ding, head of education at global tutoring outfit Wukong Education.

“I think generally we’re going to enter a point in the not too distant future where there’s going to be a bit of a push back on tech in general.

“The last 25 years have been super exciting, there’s been this development of all this technology really quickly.

“I think AI especially will find its place and I’m sure there will continue to be disruption. I’m sure some jobs will go that way, and that some education tools will be driven by all those facets of technology one day,” Mitchinson added.

The post Edtech “still waiting for its 5G moment” appeared first on The PIE News.

We all have much to learn in order to build a sustainable, peaceful and democratic future. This is especially true for how Europe does and should work with Africa.

The Coimbra Group’s annual conference at the University of Cologne from May 31 to June 2 this year demonstrated the organisation’s ethos of global co-operation.

Founded in 1985, the group comprises 41 European, high-ranking, comprehensive, civic universities. It is committed to creating special academic and cultural ties to promote internationalisation, academic collaboration, excellence in learning and research, and service to society. The group also influences European educational policy and develops best practice through mutual exchange of experience.

This year’s conference was fittingly scheduled to run alongside the Africa Futures conference, organised by the University of Cologne, and delegates could attend each other’s public events.

Vice-Rector for Teaching and Studies, Beatrix Busse, highlighted during her inspiring keynote that, amidst pressing global challenges, the need to foster a truly co-operative and co-creative spirit has never been greater.

Similarly, a transdisciplinary approach showing humility and humanity, as well as critical self-reflection will also prove imperative as we strive together to find solutions for wide-ranging issues including climate change, ecology, use of data and new models of telecommunication.

The focus on Africa as determining our “joint future and tomorrow mind” was also emphasised. The appeal for everyone to be “curious misfits”, in the sense of being empathetic and looking at life differently, was especially thought-provoking and surely holds the key to building the strongest, most meaningful bridges with international partners.

I had the pleasure of being part of a very fruitful panel discussion, moderated by Professor Kirk Junker of University of Cologne, together with fellow panellists Henk Kummeling, the Vice-Chancellor of University of Utrecht, Filomain Nguemo of University of Cologne and Hirut Woldemariam of University of Ethiopia, who also gave a wonderful keynote on women in science.

I was delighted to have the opportunity to introduce our commitment and plans to advance academic research collaborations with the Global North and Africa, and to rebalance the global production of knowledge.

Next month on 5 July, as part of a continental conference in Namibia hosted by the Association of African Universities, many hundreds of institutions will be invited to join a special Charter facilitated by the University of Bristol Perivoli Africa Research Centre in partnership with the University of South Africa and University of Cape Town.

The Charter aims to redress deeply entrenched power imbalances which have fuelled a huge gap between privileged universities and scholars in Europe, North America and Australia, and their African counterparts. Such historic disparities generate a division of labour, which systematically denies African scholars leading roles in, and control of funding for, international research endeavours to the detriment of themselves as well as the whole science and research ecosystem.

Despite forming one-tenth of the world adult population, Central, East, Southern and West Africa contribute to a tiny fraction (just 1.6% in 2018) of scientific publications globally. Compounding this underrepresentation, the majority of African research involves collaboration with richer countries and tends to concern Western priorities.

According to UNESCO, between 2017-2019 around 88% of scientific work in East and Central Africa, and 85% in Southern Africa, had international partners with the US, UK, and France being the most common collaborators.

No universities in Africa feature in the top 200 of the latest annual QS World University Rankings – Cape Town is the highest at 237. Only five African institutions, four of which are in South Africa, make the top 500 and none outside of South Africa, Egypt, and Tunisia are in the top 1,000.

Very few highly cited scholars are affiliated with African universities and, as again shown in the UNESCO Science Report 2021, a disproportionately small number of researchers and scientific publications in the world are African.

“The Charter will establish an African-centred framework, providing guiding principles as well as measures of success and accountability”

This systemic exclusion has a massive negative impact on the African economy, perpetuating dependence while also thwarting potential and development especially in science and technology. The Charter will unite networks, such as Coimbra, higher education organisations, funders, governments, policy bodies and publishers to co-create equitable partnerships putting Africa at the forefront.

It will embrace local ways of knowledge, namely African knowledge and concepts, and crucially reverse the one-way gaze which has focused on and favoured the Global North, determining Western predominance for decades. Research resources will be Africa-led, so they can at last set the agenda and also claim rightful credit.

The Charter will establish an African-centred framework, providing guiding principles as well as measures of success and accountability. While the approach may sound radically different at first, this reformed way of working will be championed as standard and best practice.

Besides resetting unjust hierarchies originating from colonial legacies, this collective endeavour will produce more inclusive, impactful scientific knowledge for the betterment of society at large.

Nelson Mandela’s sage assessment that “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” can perhaps be extended to include equitable research partnerships. In today’s world full of conflict, division, and multi-crises, the Charter represents a tangible roadmap to a better, more progressive, diverse, and sustainable shared future.

About the author: Professor Agnes Nairn is Pro Vice Chancellor (Global Engagement) at University of Bristol in the UK.

The post Africa meets Europe appeared first on The PIE News.

A new initiative will be implemented this summer aiming to improve the integration process for international students as they join Luxembourg’s school system.

The Service for Integration and Admission in School initiative will serve as a comprehensive resource for families arriving in Luxembourg to familiarise themselves with the local education system.

Before relocating to the European country, parents will be able to contact the SIA for information about available schooling options and gather information about the students’ academic history.

Every year, around 4,000 students from overseas join Luxembourg’s school system, either because their parents have relocated for work or they have been forced to flee their home countries.

The legislation, presented by Minister of Education Claude Meisch earlier in June, will be voted on in the Chamber of Deputies before the summer recess.

Pierre Reding, director for Integration at the Ministry of Education, explained that the SIA will not only consider linguistic abilities but also assess the child’s previous academic experience, skills in different subjects, their family’s aspirations and length of stay in the Grand Duchy.

The goal is to match each child with a suitable school environment that meets their individual needs and circumstances.

Reding also highlighted the importance of collaboration between the SIA, families and schools. Previously, schools often lacked preparation to receive new students, leading to a lack of information transfer.

The SIA will facilitate communication between the service, the chosen school, and the incoming students’ families, ensuring a smooth transition and sharing vital information about the students and their educational backgrounds.

The integration service will also promote interculturality within schools, encouraging them to incorporate it into their development plans beyond mere cultural events. Reding emphasised the need to equip teachers with the necessary skills to effectively engage with diverse student populations.

The SIA will address orientation questions for both primary and secondary schools and provide support for up to two years.

The service will also include document translation for families who do not speak the local languages. Cultural mediators will be available to facilitate a smooth transition between cultures and languages for the students.

To promote better integration, teachers and peers will also receive information about the new student’s background, nationality and languages spoken.

Meisch emphasised the importance of ensuring quality education for all students, while recognising the need for further progress based on national and international education studies.

The SIA team, already in place, consists of 35 professionals, supported by 11 full-time intercultural mediators, 75 freelance mediators and 53 temporary staff members dedicated to Ukrainian children and families.

Additionally, each school will have the opportunity to appoint a designated staff member who will be given time off from their regular duties to serve as a contact person for incoming students.

The post Luxembourg to bring in school integration plan appeared first on The PIE News.