France has 25,000 unaccompanied minors. And for them, the school journey feels like an obstacle course. Multiple administrative obstacles restrict their access to education, contributing to their learning delay, with these young migrants losing up to three years of schooling according to a Unicef report published this Wednesday.
In France, children without legal representation would not benefit from satisfactory protection and educational support with regard to the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (CIDE), explains UNICEF. This particularly highlights too little investment by departmental councils, responsible for the protection of unaccompanied minors (UMAs), in the educational care of these young people.
From six months to three years without schooling
“The departments very rarely send unaccompanied minors to school during the reception and assessment phase” notes Unicef, which also regrets that “the significant delays in national orientation, in the assessment of their educational level and assignment to an establishment often delay their access to school. According to the report, the slowness of these procedures would amount to between 500 and 3,000 hours of lost lessons. The equivalent of 6 months to 3 years without schooling.
“The right to schooling of unaccompanied minors present on French territory is seriously hampered,” reports the UN agency, which is concerned about the “significant consequences on the mental health” of young migrants. “Being deprived of school, even for only 6 months, is harm that may prove irreparable. We are penalizing an entire generation of children whose mental health and future are at stake,” warns Adeline Hazan, president of Unicef France. The report also mentions other pitfalls, including the almost systematic orientation of unaccompanied minors in the professional sector or the insufficiency of classes adapted to their teaching in certain territories.