Right to education for undocumented children
The project focuses on the right to education for undocumented children. Every minor child in our country has a legally enshrined right to education. This right is guaranteed, inter alia, by Article 24 of the Belgian Constitution and Articles 18 and 19 of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (Bouckaert, 2007).
Goals?
The research has two main objectives:
1. This research aims to examine how this right to education translates from an administrative-legal perspective into subthemes (or topics) such as:
- Compulsory education
- Obtaining a diploma
- School trips abroad
- School insurance versus KB more urgent medical aid
- Access to school and study allowance
- Access to age benefits
- Obtaining residence status as a result of attending school
- Possibility of dual learning - alternating learning-working (following opening of a bank account)
- Possibility to follow an internship
- Picking up children through school events
Some topics fall under federal competence. Other topics have recently been transferred to Flanders. That is why the regulations in Wallonia will also be examined.
2. In a 2nd phase, the research will focus on the administrative-legal, as well as the pedagogical-didactic bottlenecks (= barriers) associated with the practical roll-out of the above-mentioned education legislation and related legal branches (residence legislation, social law, …)
Sub questions are:
- Do schools have insight into the presence of children without legal residence at their school?
- Which administrative-legal/pedagogical-didactic bottlenecks (thresholds) do school teams experience with regard to; the realization of this right to education?
- What initiatives are schools (as well as supra-local education actors) taking to maximize access to education for these children?
- What support needs do school teams have?
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