Overarching trends and recommendations in language training and education frameworks: Key findings and recommendations

This policy brief will provide an overview of cross-cutting trends in language training and education for adult asylum seekers and refugees across the localities of Malmö and Eslöv (Sweden), Cosenza and Catanzaro (Italy), Nicosia (Cyprus) and Aberdeenshire, Argyll and Bute, and Glasgow (Scotland). Specifically, this brief will discuss key issues that have consistently been identified as contributing factors to programme completion and language acquisition. This brief will organise these crosscutting trends into three overarching categories that ultimately influence educational access, provision and quality of language training for migrants: 1) individual factors; 2) education system/programme factors; and 3) policy and programme governance factors. Key policy recommendations correspond with each thematic category. GLIMER is informed by a combination of rigorous policy analysis, qualitative research with multi-party stakeholders and secondary analysis. This policy brief is reliant on policy documents, statistics and evaluations together with interviews with stakeholders from national, regional and local authorities and the third sector collected in 2019 in all four countries. In Sweden, GLIMER members worked across the region of Skåne and the municipalities of Malmö and Eslöv, two municipalities in a close geographic distance and part of the Öresund region that connects Sweden to Denmark and continental Europe. In Italy, researchers worked in different locations covering the territory of Calabria, focusing on two main cities (Cosenza, Catanzaro) and on places with a high density of non-Italian residents (Lamezia Terme). In Cyprus, work consisted of ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth semi-structured interviews with stakeholders from devolved and local government, as well as the third sector. Lastly, in Scotland consortium members worked across several locations that included both the site of Dispersal – Glasgow – as well as areas involved in the Vulnerable Person’s Resettlement Scheme (VPRS) – Aberdeenshire and Argyll and Bute. This policy brief does not represent an exhaustive depiction of each country’s findings. To access each country’s full report, please visit: http://www.glimer.eu/outputs/.