The Evaluation of Educational Credentials for Young Refugees Inclusion: an Explorative Research

In a historical moment such as this one marked by the Covid-19 emergency, characterised by the difficulty of access to resources for the inclusion of people with a migrant background, the need to rethink the actions that educational agencies must implement for the integration between the formal, non-formal and informal – also for the purposes of the recognition of educational credentials – strongly re-emerges (Merico and Scardigno, 2020). The process of recognition and subsequent validation aimed at migrants, in fact, «can increase participation in lifelong learning and access to the labour market» (Council of the European Union, 2012, p. 3; Souto-Otero and Villalba-Garcia, 2015, p. 588). Through the initial results of a critical review of the initiatives carried out in some North-East European countries, this contribution focuses on the experiences of validation of migrants’ skills, highlighting the role played by the connection between formal and informal systems and of no formal education in the processes of integration and enhancement of cultural capital. The aim of the research work is to reconsider the value of lifelong-learning processes, through a ‘polycentric’ structure of the training system which is far from being consolidated, yet which is decisive for the cultural and professional integration of young migrants, who are ‘challenging’ the traditional education and training system. In order to pursue this aim, an analysis of the scientific and grey literature of reference has been carried out, querying online databases and international search engines. The measures taken and described in the European Inventory on validation of non-formal and informal learning show the importance of ensuring that recognition services should also be integrated with other forms of access to study and work, as migrants «are not a uniform group, but a very complex and heterogeneous one» (Clayton 2005; Sainsbury 2006; Souto-Otero and Villalba-Garcia, 2015, p. 596). The reflections reached also show the importance of ensuring a more fruitful dialogue between local governments and civil society and also of implementing measures to support tertiary education, especially for young refugees, as several Italian universities have already experimented, valuing informal education and skills acquired especially in non-formal contexts.