Feature
PHOTO by FatCamera
Education for all Children seeking asylum in the UK are often waiting months for school places or being forced to move just as they settle in, say NEU members volunteering with Care4Calais. Emily Jenkins reports. “WE are increasingly disheartened at the stories we are hearing of the struggle to get asylum seekers school places,” says Katie SpencerMatthews, a teacher from Leeds who volunteers supporting refugees arriving in the UK. “I’m currently supporting a 16-year-old from Yemen whose thirst for education is breathtaking. Every week he asks me if we’ve managed to get him in anywhere yet.” Every child in the UK has a right to education, whatever their immigration status,
but a variety of factors conspire against many young asylum seekers gaining that right. ‘Temporary’ accommodation Veronika Alblova volunteers with charity Care4Calais (C4C) in London: “I know people who have been in temporary accommodation since June last year. The children should be in school.” When asylum seekers arrive in the UK, they are first placed in temporary accommodation – often a hotel or motel. The Home Office website says this is for three to four weeks before more permanent
“dispersal accommodation” is provided. But volunteers on the ground report that many asylum seekers are being kept in this so-called temporary accommodation for up to a year. During this time there is little support from the Government for families trying to get a school place. Veronika’s C4C colleague Laura Glendinning explains: “Sometimes it’s left to the hotel receptionist to help them with the process. But they often don’t have the experience or training. They just Google the nearest school.” continued on page 18
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