Integrating Refugee and Asylum-seeking Children - Center for the ...

executive summary 17
• interviews with stakeholders, conducted over the phone, via email or
in person – conducted during fact-finding visits (primary data).
The reports first presented a general overview of the demographics of
refugees and asylum seekers in the respective country, the institutional
set-up, legal and policy framework, as well as of the educational
system and the educational status of refugees and asylum seekers.
This was followed by an overview of best practices in the educational
integration of RASC (where those could be identified). Several criteria
for the identification of best practices were followed in the preparation
of the country reports:
• part of an overall strategy: Is the initiative elaborated and implemented
as part of an overarching strategy?
• Impact: Is there any evidence that the initiative has a measurable
output in reaching its aims?
• transferability: Does the initiative have the potential to be one that
others can copy, and that can be transferred to other settings and/or
Member States?
• sustainability: Does the initiative have the potential to lead to
enduring structural changes?
• Innovation: Is the initiative of a new type, does it present a new way
of doing an existing task? Is there any added value?
• relevance for the aims: Is the initiative an adequate means to reach
the aims?
• stakeholders’ involvement: Does the initiative take stakeholders’
(incl. RASC’s/RASC parents’) opinions into account, or allow for active
participation by and feedback from stakeholders?
policies versus projects
One way of classifying the best practices reviewed as part of the
INTEGRACE project is to term them as either policies or projects.
The former mobilise state resources while the latter rely more on
civil society actors and short-term funding at lower levels. The first
type is more sustainable, whereas the second illustrates the vitality
of solidarity, the spirit of innovation, and of shared responsibility and
civic participation. Of course, this dichotomy is not absolute as NGOs
could have policies as well. In the Austrian/German context the report
authors have made a distinction between longer-term, more sustainable
programmes and short-term projects (or projects which are part of some
umbrella programme).
The two main strengths of the policies are their sustainability and their
capacity for anticipation. The former is illustrated by the finding that the
structural features of the educational system could be very beneficial
for RASC. Policies’ sustainability is expressed also by the capacity of
governmental agencies to change and to back the new orientations by
funding and personnel.
projects compete with policies in anticipating probable future trends or
even unexpected developments. Projects are more flexible and open to