ALL YOU CAN LEARN: Increasing Learners’ Decision-Making Capacity Through Selective Education Experiences with Highly Vulnerable Groups among the Forcibly Displaced

Pilot Experience in Palermo, Italy

The design of the selective-learning TAIS, a tool/methodology developed by CESIE in the frame of RAISD, i.e. the training opportunity “ALL you can LEARN” (AUCL), proposes a participatory practice in education, shifting from an “induced” training offer approach (i.e. a dominating and top-down way to organise education for Forcibly Displaced People, FDP) to a “selective” approach aimed at developing a training offer in which several optional modules are offered so that participants can choose contents that are attractive for them.

Starting from the project’s consideration that Institutions and organisations providing services to immigrants are not always aware of all the vulnerability factors that shape the needs of their clients, educational inclusion solutions are frequently reactive, partial and disregard some groups.

Moreover, there is still a tendency for national educational policymakers and planners to ignore human factors, training providers too often assume to know and understand FDPs’ learning needs, thrusting learners into one-size-fits-all solutions while ignoring those individual factors and circumstances (pre-migration, in-transit, at-arrival) that strongly affect educational achievements. In Italy, this reflects in a high number of NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) among FDP, consistent training dropout rates and lower female participation.

The ultimate aim was to increase learners’ decision-making capacity as they are to be intended as “co-experts” of the Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) based inclusion strategy, thus having the opportunity to decide and co-design their learning experience according to a set of individual variables (interests and aspirations, level of studies and previously attended programmes, language knowledge, logistics and time availability, etc.).

Expected results of the Italian Tailored Attention and Inclusion Strategy (TAIS) included:

• the increased highly vulnerable and forcibly displaced female participation in Education and Training;
• decreased initial resistance and attendance reluctance;
• reduced in-training dropout rates among FDP women.

In order to achieve these goals, the excessive strictness of learning paths and hours of commitment were avoided and replaced by a flexible learning environment.

The actual piloting of “ALL you can LEARN” involved Forcibly Displaced Women living and/or exposed to highly vulnerable situations and conditions, victims of human trafficking currently living in Sicily, originally from Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Comoros and Tunisia. The training experience was implemented over 16 sessions/40 hours in summer 2021, covering:

• orientation sessions (understanding learning objectives to be achieved);
• actual face-to-face training sessions, based on twenty learning objectives selected by each participant;
• local study visits as an opportunity for debate, exchange and mutual learning and final evaluation and capitalization sessions.

Acknowledgments

CESIE would like to thank all the people who participated in the research and piloting activities for their time and for having shared their feelings, emotions, difficulties and sufferings, also remembering painful episodes of their lives.

Moreover, we would like to thank all the migrant shelters and victims’ support centres which trustfully let us enter the facilities and engage with people and all local stakeholders who have contributed with their knowledge and experiences.

Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to the researchers and trainers for their dedication and understanding of target profiles.