Integrating Immigrant Children into Schools in Europe

Chapter 4 – Measures for the Integration of Immigrant Children at SchoolFigure 4.2: Types of assessment of prior educational attainment,full-time compulsory education, 2003/04Assessment by school staffwithout external criteriaAssessment on the basis of external criteriaData not availableSource: Eurydice.4.3. Patterns of IntegrationWith the common aim of achieving integration rapidly, European countries have found several ways oforganising life at school for immigrant children resident on their territory. As pointed out in the precedingsection, among the first criteria considered when allocating immigrant children to mainstream classes isthat of language: are those children capable of following lessons in the language of instruction used attheir school? If the answer is no, then most education systems consider that they require specialassistance to meet their needs.Where measures to support immigrant children have been introduced, they correspond to two mainmodels as follows:an integrated model in which immigrant children are allocated to classes consisting of childrenof the same age (or younger depending on circumstances) in mainstream education. Here theyfollow methods and the curricular content intended for native pupils. Measures for support(essentially linguistic in nature) are implemented on an individual basis for each pupil duringnormal school hours.Extracurricular tuition in addition to mainstream provision may also exist. Where this is thecase, immigrant pupils are given lessons outside normal school hours but always on schoolpremises. The host country education authorities are responsible for such tuition.41