At the start of the second semester of school year 2020 – 2021, the Ministry of Education in Romania launched a national pilot remedial programme entitled 'School after School', in which refugee and migrant children are able to partake.

From March until June 2021, the programme will provide educational support in Romanian language and mathematics. Children who fulfill at least one of the following criteria will be eligible:

• have no access to electronic devices or to the internet for online schooling;
• are enrolled in primary or secondary inferior school grades (1^st to 8^th);
• have poor school outcomes or are at risk of dropout.

Admission of children into the programme is granted upon parents’ request. Priority is given to pupils who belong to vulnerable groups, such as the economically disadvantaged, the Roma, people living in rural communities, and so on. Refugees and migrants are included in these vulnerable groups.

During the 2020 – 2021 school year, it was found that most newly arrived refugee and migrant children:

• were enrolled in the preparatory year, therefore not registered in official school records, and were without access to tablets;
• had poor Romanian language skills, so were not able to acquire the school knowledge at the same level as their national peers;
• were enrolled in the primary/secondary 'inferior' school grades.

As most recently-arrived refugee and migrant children meet two, if not all, the eligibility criteria set for the programme, NGOs working on asylum and migration are hoping that this mainstream measure will benefit them all and lead to improvements in their school and educational outcomes.