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Hello everyone and welcome to the round table "Education -- study -- migrations".
This round table is part of the international project "Migration to the Centre",
carried out by an international group in five countries:
the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Slovenia.
As part of the project we want to share some of our experiences
regarding the integration of migrants in these five countries.
The project is supported by the programme "Europe for Citizens."
Today we will be talking about migrations in connection with education,
and our guests are:
Uršula Lipovec Čebron, lecturer at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ljubljana,
Mojca Pajnik, lecturer at the Faculty of Social Sciences and researcher at the Peace Institute,
Dejan Plantak, a student at the University of Ljubljana,
Irena Kuntarič Hribar from the Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities,
and Živko Banjac from the Ministry of Education.
Labour market policy and within it educational policy
in the sphere of migrations channels migrants into
some lower level vocations, into unskilled occupations. Most migrants
as we know take up jobs in construction, in the care-giving sector,
in short in precarious employment.
That is, the state expresses an interest in this type of migrant.
The result, as shown by many studies, is a very large problem
of so-called deskilling.
We have a very large number of migrants in Slovenia with higher education,
even with doctorates, who work illegally in the precarious sector and so on.
Here let me underscore this with data from Eurostat for last year
-- this is not just a Slovenian syndrome, but also a European one --
indicating that this underqualification of migrants is
40 to 50%, as compared to 20% for the ethnic majority.
Thus we can clearly see that something is not right with migrant
educational policy at the level of the European Union.
So much by way of introduction.
I would like to briefly outline this problem (the termination of scholarships for students coming from abroad to study here).
It's a fact that up until 31 December 2011 Slovenian citizenship was not a condition for receiving publicly funded scholarships.
Thus the practice was that citizenship was not a basis for awarding assistance and in no case was it a condition.
Beginning 1 January 2012, the Exercise of Rights to Public Funds Act, the well-known ZUPJS,
began to be applied and it stipulated citizenship of the Republic of Slovenia as a condition.
Now it's important to know that this act invalidated provisions of the act on scholarships in such a way
that only citizens of Slovenia and ethnic Slovenes living abroad could apply for any scholarship.
Others could only do so under condition of reciprocity, based on bilateral agreements between countries.
This act was thus of crucial importance in the termination of these public scholarships and also had an impact on other levels.
Now this transitional regime is happening,
under which students who are not Slovenian citizens are divided into three groups.
The first group -- those who first applied for a public scholarship
in the autumn of 2011 -- were awarded it only until the end of the year. So for two, three months.
Others, who already had a public scholarship and fulfilled the conditions for receiving it,
were granted the assistance for the following year, in other words
until the end of the 2011/2012 academic year.
And then those who received the Zois Scholarship retained it until the completion of their studies.
Thus as you can see there was an immediate division into several groups
and as Dejan will later tell us, this has had significant consequences.
What I think is important to stress is that the ZUPJS in the part
that regulates scholarship is discriminatory and definitely unconstitutional.
It violates the principle of equality in Article 14 of the Constitution and also interferes unacceptably in the right
to freely choose one's occupation in paragraph 2 of Article 49 of the Constitution.
It is thus clear that this is an unconstitutional situation that discriminates on the basis of citizenship.
It's interesting that Stanislav Pejovnik, the former rector of the University of Ljubljana,
was perhaps more constructive and immediately promised a fund to assist students
left without a scholarship and in fact in a few months they received a one-time payment of €500.
This was, I stress, a one-time payment. How that money was collected is rather questionable.
Pejovnik promised many things, including the establishment of a fund from within Ad Futura
for the internationalization of universities as well as his commitment to work for changes in legislation.
I won't go into details now, but the fact remains that nothing ever came of that apart from
the one-off assistance mentioned. No other results are evident.
We students have held a couple of protests, but unfortunately they did not bring about much in the way of results.
We showed that knowledge has no nationality,
that we are not foreign students, we are Slovenian students.
The only positive thing to come out of these campaigns was the assistance of Rector Stanislav Pejovnik, who held a campaign to collect money for all students who lost their scholarships.
On the one hand we were happy that he helped us,
but on the other it was horrible to feel like we were going round asking for a handout.
In the end enough money was collected so that theoretically each person received €500,
but it was a pity that no clear criteria were applied as to who was entitled to that money.
No one checked whether that person was even still in Slovenia,
whether they were attending classes, nothing.
So the money went to those who were the first to apply for it; the first people who applied were in fact those
who were not serious students and towards the end there came the ones who are actually engaged in studying.
A couple of months ago I was told about a girl who is still trying to get that money.
There's also a problem with health care.
We don't have any health insurance here.
Just for the students from Croatia it's easier because of the European health cards.
But what about the rest? There's also a problem with student employment services,
we only have a minimal tax deduction of about €2500 annually.
If we're older than 26, not even that is taken into account. If we go over the limit,
they don't take 14% as in the case of other students, but 25%. That's simply not fair.
At the student employment services they restrict us to jobs clearly marked for "foreign students."
As a result I'm currently working for €2.50 per hour since they
take that 25% and there's nothing I can do about it.
My question is, is it fair, can a student coming from abroad live on €2500 per year?
As you know and as was already mentioned today, in November
the Exercise of Rights to Public Funds Act was changed.
In that particular part it is true that once again the condition is set
only citizens of the Republic of Slovenia can receive a scholarship.
All other rights under the Exercise of Rights to Public Funds Act are under certain conditions
intended also for migrants and their families.
That is to say, in this part we are referring to subsidies for school snacks and lunches for children in preschools and for secondary school pupils,
then there is the transportation supplement, then child supplement,
also under certain conditions, but in this part of the law residency is already referred to.
Under the law regulating scholarships we also have a section referring to citizens of third countries
who have acquired residency, that is to say, these are again enabled other rights, also in the Scholarship Act.
Yes, just public scholarships.
What about student employment?
Student employment is still allowed, meal subsidies ... Look,
student employment and other rights that students have derive from student status.
That is, someone acquires the status of student at a higher education institution
and once they have that status they are entitled to student employment, student meals,
subsidized transportation, I think there are restrictions regarding housing in student dormitories
but I'm not entirely certain, everything else is granted them based on their status.
Public scholarships are based on citizenship.
That is the only thing in these two laws which arises from citizenship.
At this point I would like to perhaps move on to the second part of today's round table,
to the question of children from migrant families.
That is, children who move here, the parents come and bring their children with them.
And then they are included in the Slovenian educational system.
How are they provided for, what does the state offer them, so that the transition
from the school they attended in their home country to a Slovenian school
is as smooth as possible and successful? Mr. Banjac.
So the Ministry of Education, despite being the ministry responsible, does not have a lot of data in this area.
First of all because of the restrictions on accessing, collecting, and interpreting data on pupils.
We have some indirect data based on applications from schools
with such students when they request additional hours of Slovene language instruction.
The Elementary School Act stipulates that the children of foreigners with an immigration background
have the right to be educated under the same conditions as citizens of Slovenia.
Article 8 of the Act states that the Republic of Slovenia
shall also encourage certain forms of instruction
of children in their first language based on bilateral agreements
and for some communities these projects are funded in their entirety.
Another thing that facilitates inclusion and integration
in the Slovenian educational system is also the possibility that pupils
in their first year advance to a higher class even if they fail
to achieve certain standards and goals outlined in the guidelines.
Clearly Slovene language is crucial for
understanding and achieving these standards and goals.
Moreover immigrant pupils can decide voluntarily
whether they want to take part in national assessment tests.
We are focusing very much on language, which of course is important,
one of the most important matters, but it is not the only one.
Here I would note that Livada, the school mentioned by Admir, and a few other similar schools, are specific schools
where these matters are well organized, where they know how to approach it and so on.
If we look at the level of the whole of Slovenia, the situation is not...
Livada's example has not been followed. So here I would draw attention
to what you have highlighted, because it seems to me that policies are not moving in that direction,
namely towards establishing a countrywide strategy that deals comprehensively with this area,
so that it is not divided up piecemeal among various ministries and sectors.
And that it overcomes the ethnocentrism that we still find in our schools.
Regarding the training of teachers, that seems to me crucially
important, and too little is being done in Slovenia in this area.
The real effects of this are seen in the case of migrant children.
The parents of migrant children -- not just from Livada
but also other schools -- speak of very direct cases of discrimination.
For instance, I can tell you about one case, a girl could not get a five
in Slovene and could not get it despite the fact that her marks were high enough to deserve a five.
The final mark was simply not assessed as a five, and the explanation
was that since she is not from Slovenia she cannot get a five.
What I want to say is that this kind of thing still goes on in schools.
These are the instances that parents tell us about.
I don't want to generalize but in short: more needs to be done in the area of training,
the strategy needs to be more comprehensive, more integrated, because it is
one thing to say that multiculturalism is a reality and another is what actually goes on in schools.
Now my question is specifically about these scholarships:
there is a lot of talk about providing scholarships through the Ad Futura Fund and similar.
I would like to know how many there are and whether these calls for applications
are done for first cycle students in the Bologna Process.
Does there in fact exist some channel for them, some possibility, for them to access these funds?
This law, which comes into force on 1 January 2014,
also regulates Ad Futura scholarships for the first time.
That is, these scholarships were previously regulated by general operating provisions of the fund,
and now these scholarships are regulated by law.
And the law states that Ad Futura educational scholarships
can be awarded for secondary and tertiary education.
So the Ad Futura programmes must be adapted to that.
Now it's like this. We have three types of Ad Futura scholarships:
one is for education, which means a rise in the formal educational level,
another is for study visits, and the third is for participation in competitions,
in which there are special calls for applications for these matters.
The application processes will be adapted to this.
We are referring to Ad Futura scholarships for Slovenes who study abroad
and for foreigners who study in Slovenia.
The connections work in this way.
So in accordance with the name of the fund, Ad Futura,
we are talking about the future. That is, up until now this has not happened.
This is what I want to ask.
Up until now it has been the second cycle of the Bologna process,
and it was stupid, I agree with that, that you had to complete the first
cycle in the same specialization.
I had a look at your website, the website of the fund, because I was interested in
light of what I had read in a newspaper report, where are these calls for applications,
and I'm sorry but I can't find them for the first cycle. That is, we are talking about the future,
but there is some transitional period, and here is where some generation now
will unfortunately suffer hardship as a result of this. But anyway thank you for your response.
We often talk now about the threat of tuition -- we will fight against
the introduction of that that with all our means -- but at the same time, along with this demand
that education is tuition-free, we all must want or demand scholarships.
And the scholarship system must be a good one.
We always forget that the two go together, that countries that have high tuition fees also introduced in the past
a good system of providing financial aid, and that nobody decided to have tuition without scholarships.
I'm talking about the European Union.
I would like to ask just one more question, and then I think we can wrap it up for today.
These bilateral agreements between Slovenia and countries from the former Yugoslavia.
We have found that in a number of areas, for instance referring to Bosnia and Herzegovina, it doesn't work.
For example, regarding instruction in the first language, Slovenia supports the concept
that this should be a matter of bilateral agreements if possible. That is, done in a way
such that Slovenia supports and also subsidizes instruction in Slovene in the republics of the former Yugoslavia
and that these republics finance instruction in their native languages in Slovenia, even though
there is a huge difference in the number of children of Slovenian ancestry who live in Bosnia
and the number of children with Bosnian roots who live in Slovenia.
In general there is a problem since Bosnia as a country has its own problems
and a lot of difficulty functioning in even the most basic of areas,
let alone accepting bilateral agreements.
Not long ago there was a problem with the bilateral agreement
on the social rights of workers, which caused direct discrimination.
There was the same problem with Macedonia, and then we have this bilateral agreement on education.
Clearly these bilateral agreements, at least when we're talking about the republics of the former Yugoslavia, are not the best solution.
Dejan, you mentioned earlier, on the one hand the matter works for a particular population
in a particular context, but this is not a true systemic solution.
This is a solution that then absolutely reproduces discrimination
against those you don't have an agreement with. An example is, for instance
Italy with regard to the official recognition of certificates. The recognition of certificates --
which is just one more problem that the student population encounters -- only of those
countries with which it has signed a bilateral agreement.
This nationalizing and totalitarian-like ideology weakens this population
and in some way subjects it to the mercy and mercilessness of the market, the labour market.
Okay, I would like to thank everyone again. I hope we have covered a very wide spectrum of topics
and we hope that we have sufficiently exposed the problem
of migrants in connection with education here in Slovenia.