Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-04-01-Speech-3-262"
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"en.20090401.21.3-262"2
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Mr President, it is the ethical obligation of the European Union to ensure that everyone, including the children of migrants, has the right to a good education. Each child must have the right to receive an education, which must be free and compulsory, at least at basic level. Children should be able to receive a general education that fosters equal opportunities to develop their abilities – their individual power of discernment and sense of moral and social responsibility – so that they might grow as well-balanced, responsible members of society.
Those responsible for the education and supervision of children should regard what is best for the child as their guiding principle. This of course starts in the home and with the parents, but schools and society also need to be in a supporting role in children’s upbringing, thereby allowing pupils to develop their personalities more wholly.
I have been concerned about the studies that have been recently published on the children of migrants. They suggest that in some places it has been very difficult for them to go to school and that in some societies efforts have been made to establish schools that cater exclusively for the children of migrants. The result has been, of course, that families have moved their children from the local school so that they would not need to be in the same school as the children of migrants. This is a regrettable situation and has led to very poor educational standards and school results among the children of migrants. Another outcome has been the very fast turnover of teaching staff in those schools with a high concentration of migrant children.
This is not the development we had hoped for, and we must establish conditions where the children of migrants can integrate into society in the best possible way. We should also ensure that schools have adequate resources, by which I mean quantitative resources in terms of teaching staff and also financial resources, and we need to take responsibility for the development of teacher training and, furthermore, in-service teacher training. To be able to take care of migrant children in an integrated, sustainable way we need a comprehensive approach. We also need special investment and additional resources for teacher training and the entire educational system.
I know that this is an issue that falls within the competence of each Member State, but it is also through transparent coordination on the part of the European Parliament and the European Union that we should encourage the Member States to act, because I believe that we all want migrant children to have a good education and be able to integrate into society. This way we can avoid the regrettable trend in social exclusion that we are witnessing today in the case of many migrant children. The fact is that this often leads to unemployment and, moreover, crime, as well as a lot of other unwanted consequences.
It is also a matter of concern from the point of view of the free movement of labour within the European Union that people residing in the Member States of the EU will not want to move to another country or work abroad because it is impossible to arrange good, proper schooling and good quality teaching for their children there. That is why we need to focus attention on this issue and ensure that there is an adequate system of high-level, good quality education for every child and young person in each of the Member States of the European Union.
Children and young people are our future – the most valuable asset we have. Their name is ‘Today’, not ‘Tomorrow’, and so I hope that we in the European Union will be able to share the common principle whereby every child has the right to an integrated, secure tomorrow and a good education."@en1
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