On World Refugee Day, the Coalition for Migrant and Refugee Rights (CDMiR) highlighted to the authorities the effects of the lockdown and the shift to online learning on refugee and migrant children.

The letter sent to the Ministry of Education and Research pointed out several issues that migrant and refugee children are coping with:

• The termination of Romanian language courses since the mid-March 2020;
• Lack of equipment for accessing the online learning platforms;
• Absence of online content that is tailored to their language abilities;
• Lack of information on how the evaluation for enrollment in mainstream classes is being organised.  

The CDMIR recommendations to the Ministry of Education include:

• To improve refugee and migrant children’s access to online learning through their inclusion in a governmental support programme for acquisition of equipment (such as tablets);
• To provide information to the parents/guardians on the evaluation process for enrollment in mainstream classes;
• To ensure the continuity of Romanian language courses for both children and adults;
• To adapt the content of the online resources to the language abilities of refugee and migrant pupils;
• To collect data on refugee and migrant children, and include them in all strategies targeting educational inclusion.

CDMiR is a Coalition of 21 Romanian NGOs working on asylum, migration, human rights and public policies that aim to ensure that the rights of each refugee and migrant in Romania are being observed.