Education International Research
system, which essentially means that their education journey could be over. There is a need for closer scrutiny on how the 18-year-old rule affects the most vulnerable among asylum-seeking children, i.e. those who have arrived on their own. Legal frameworks are not just about formally adopting international conventions. This is merely a first step. Providing structures for ensuring the regulations’ purposeful implementation in local practices is a necessary next step. Implementation is, as pointed out above, a local matter, on the level of municipalities and schools, and dependent on their prioritisation of same. What is needed in this organisational chain is a unit at the local level, specially appointed to guard the interests of newly-arrived children and to support local stakeholders. In Sweden, one such unit has been set up recently, with financial assistance from the national government in the form of a local coordinator in every municipality. Their role is to collect and analyse local statistics, to help ordinary structures organise professional development for teachers, to participate in national and international platforms for cooperation and exchange of experiences (see Bunar in this volume). The main conclusion drawn from this section is that promising national legislation to grant all children access to meaningful and equal education irrespective of their migration status, is effectively undermined by lack of structures for guiding, monitoring and following up implementation at local level as well as by lack of predictable and sustainable funding. Here, other priorities and approaches, not necessarily in line with national expectations, may gain the upper hand. This can and must be addressed.
4