Education: Hope for newcomers in Europe
Four additional projects, funded through the FAMI (Fund Asylum, Migration and Integration, managed by the Ministry of the Interior), are being developed by the Ministry of Education to develop teacher and administrative staff training331, school-based inclusion initiatives (€13 million), awareness-raising activities around migration and human rights (“Europe begins at Lampedusa” project), and linguistic-cultural mediation (with the objective of training 1,500 mediators). Several local initiatives have also been identified in the higher education sector. The European University Association (EUA) has listed 15 Italian universities developing actions aiming to improve refugees’ access to tertiary education in Bari, Naples, Rome, Teramo, Siena, Bologna, Turin, Pavia, Verona, and Trieste32. In May 2016, Italy was the first European country to adopt the socalled “#U4Refugees” (Universities for Refugees) initiative proposed by the EU Member of Parliament, Silvia Costa, in order to create “educational” corridors for refugee tertiary students and researchers33. Finally, the Ministry of the Interior, in collaboration with CRUI (Conference of Italian University Rectors) and ANDISU (the National Association of organisations promoting the right to education at university level), has offered 100 scholarships to students granted international protection, to facilitate access to higher education programmes during the 201617 academic year.
31 This is a €4 million multiyear plan targeting schools with high immigration rates, aiming to train 10,000 teachers, 1,000 school principals and 2,000 administrative staff. It includes the following actions: the launch of 30 Masters in “Management of multicultural schools”, specialised courses in teaching Italian as a second language, an e-learning platform and online training programmes, action research activities and the establishment of regional coordination structures. 32 The complete list and description of each activity is available on the EUA’s website (last consulted on 18 January 2017): http://eua.be/activities-services/eua-campaigns/refugees-welcome-map 33 The initiative has not been formalised yet. See http://hubmiur.pubblica.istruzione.it/web/ ministerocs030516 (Accessed on 28 April 2017)
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