The OECD has published a report which recommends that language development takes centre stage in education systems aiming to ensure that pupils from migrant backgrounds achieve well at school.
The report Closing the gap for immigrant students: policies, practice and performance, published by the OECD in 2010 identifies that immigrant students often face tougher challenges than others in achieving good education outcomes and they have diverse needs. Given that migrant students make up between 10 and 20% of most OECD countries student population, ensuring they achieve well has a high priority. The report concludes that policies at all levels of the education system need to ensure that the same quantity and quality of language and other targeted support is consistently offered to immigrant students.
The executive summary of the report notes the following:
Students who speak a language at home other than the language of instruction face different problems from those who do not. In some countries, older immigrant students arriving at a later stage in their education do not have the same experience as younger immigrants. In other countries, second-generation immigrant students, though born in the country, still face particular challenges; and there may be a performance gap between them and native students. Performance gaps between immigrant and native students are largely explained by language barriers and socioeconomic differences.
The differences in language spoken at home and socio-economic background account for a large part of the performance gap between native and immigrant students. This indicates that immigrant students would benefit from language-centric policies and policies targeting more broadly less socio-economically advantaged students. However, even after accounting for these two factors, significant performance gaps still remain. This highlights the need for targeted support measures for immigrant students as part of a larger equity scheme. Other factors associated with better educational performance for immigrant students include: participation in early childhood education and care, early home reading activities, more hours for learning language at school, educational resources at home, a more advantaged school average socio-economic composition, and school accountability measures.
The executive summary of the report and the full report can be freely downloaded.
