WHY MEDIS?
The EU education system nowadays is facing an important challenge related to the presence of significant numbers of migrants, who are in a weak socio-economic position. This situation has important implications for educational systems. Schools must adjust to their presence and build their particular needs into the traditional focus which is providing high quality and equitable education. Education is key to ensuring that these pupils are equipped to become integrated, successful and productive citizens of the host country.
Thus, within classes and schools, it is necessary to accommodate the increased diversity of mother tongues, cultural perspectives and attainments. New, adapted teaching skills and inclusive methodologies are needed and new ways of building bridges with migrant families and communities must be developed.
The migrant children often face complex and cross-cutting challenges such as socioeconomic disadvantages, languages barriers, native culture bias and difficulties in educational and cultural attainment. These often leads to social exclusion, learning difficulties and early school leaving.
Mediterranean Inclusive Schools Programme (MEDIS Programme)
The MEDIS project is to strengthen and consolidate social cohesion, intercultural education and local language in a multilingual framework of newly arrived migrants at primary and secondary schools through the Mediterranean Inclusive Schools Programme. The programme will adapt teaching skills and inclusive methodologies needed by the educational community: teachers and other pupils.
MEDIS GOALS
The following specific objectives of the project have been established:
• To tailor the Catalan Languages and Social Cohesion (LIC) Plan to specific environments on the basis of the needs and context study and to complement it with other local/regional successful initiative to upscale it educational settings at the level of EU Mediterranean countries
• To increase the professional skills of school educators (teachers, psychologists, counsellors, ...) through capacity building trainings on inclusive methodologies and pedagogical approaches
• To enhance the social inclusion in at least 90 primary and secondary schools in Spain, Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Portugal by implementing and validating the Mediterranean Inclusive Schools Programme.
• To influence on the policies by establishing contacts, signing agreements and elaborating policy recommendations for the decision makers at all levels (local, regional, national and European)
• To raise awareness on the problem of social inclusion of migrant children at schools, and to promote cultural diversity and tolerance at school environments
EXPECTED RESULTS
90 schools from the Mediterranean countries will implement into their structure the MEDIS inclusive programme facilitating the integration of children coming from different cultural and language backgrounds.
BENEFICIARIES
The Project is mainly addressed to schools and their educators (teachers, psychologists and counsellors) to improve their capacities and equipped them with skills and methods necessary to carry out the effective integration of pupils from migrant families.
The final beneficiaries of the project will be migrant children and their families, as they will be provided with an opportunity to acquire knowledge on core values and fundamental rights of the host society and thus to become an integrated part of this society.