A refugee family's integration into Greek education

"Muslims are terrorists, and refugees might bring terrorism to Greece," a seventh-grader says loudly to her friends during a class break. Mohammed, an Iraqi-Syrian refugee, sits just a couple of meters away. While situations like this do not occur often, they are an indication of the struggles for integration that affect refugees in the Greek education system.

According to UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, as of January 2018, there are 50,370 refugees and migrants in Greece. A total of 39,100 of these refugees live on the mainland and 11,270 are in the so-called hotspots on the Greek islands. There are roughly 20,300 children of school age in Greece and less than half are enrolled in formal Greek schools. The education sector faces problems with regard to refugee children's integration in Greek schools and a gap persists in meeting the needs of youngsters who have missed years of...