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Lifelong learning challenges: Responding to migration and the Sustainable Development Goals

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Abstract

The 21st century, not yet two decades old, has already seen massive migration of peoples escaping the degradation of the environment, effects of war, threats to security and lack of opportunity in their countries of origin. Those who survive, some having to come to terms with the trauma of losing loved ones along the way, enter host countries as migrants, refugees and temporary workers. This article examines the plight of these vulnerable migratory populations in light of the global responsibility for attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. Special attention is given to the support necessary for a lifelong learning (LLL) response to enable this population to live a life characterised by dignity. The authors argue for a LLL process that addresses the particular politics of “disposability” surrounding many migrants’ lives.

Résumé

Défis de l’apprentissage tout au long de la vie: traiter la migration et les objectifs de développement durable – Âgé d’à peine deux décennies, le XXIe siècle connaît déjà une migration massive de populations qui fuient la dégradation de l’environnement, les conséquences des guerres, les menaces d’insécurité et le manque d’opportunités dans leurs pays d’origine. Ceux qui y survivent, dont certains doivent affronter le traumatisme d’avoir perdu des proches pendant leur parcours, arrivent dans les pays d’accueil avec un statut de migrant, de réfugié ou de travailleur temporaire. Les auteurs se penchent dans cet article sur la détresse de ces populations migratoires vulnérables, à la lumière de la responsabilité mondiale d’atteindre d’ici 2030 les objectifs de développement durable (ODD). Ils insistent en particulier sur le soutien indispensable à une intervention sous forme d’apprentissage tout au long de la vie, qui permette à ces populations de vivre leur vie dans la dignité. Les auteurs plaident pour une démarche d’apprentissage tout au long de la vie traitant les politiques spécifiques de « jetabilité » qui entourent la vie de nombreux migrants.

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Notes

  1. The French term sans-papiers [without (identification) papers] refers to immigrants without legal status.

  2. Traffickers, often referred to as coyotes in Latin America, are criminals who smuggle migrants across borders for exorbitant sums of money.

  3. Europe and Central Asia are among the most important destinations in terms of migratory flows – with Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom and France hosting the highest numbers of the estimated 31.9 million non-EU nationals residing in Europe. The two sub-regions combined host 72.5 million migrants, representing 8.7 per cent of the total population. Despite the economic crisis, net migration remains positive in the major migrant destination countries. All figures taken from IOM (2018).

  4. The International Office of Migration defines a migrant as “any person who is moving or has moved across an international border or within a State away from his/her habitual place of residence, regardless of (1) the person’s legal status; (2) whether the movement is voluntary or involuntary; (3) what the causes for the movement are; or (4) what the length of the stay is (IOM 2011). A refugee “is someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion” (UNHCR 2010, p. 3, referring to UN 1951). A temporary worker, in this context, is defined as someone who enters another country, albeit temporarily, to fill immediate labour needs, as in harvesting seasonal foods.

  5. For detailed definitions of each of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), visit the Sustainable development knowledge platform at https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs [accessed 6 November 2018].

  6. The eight Millennium Development Goals were concerned with (1) eradicating extreme poverty and hunger; (2) achieving universal primary education; (3) promoting gender equality and empowering women; (4) reducing child mortality rates; (5) improving maternal health; (6) combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; (7) ensuring environmental sustainability; and (8) developing a global partnership for development. Achievements were evaluated in a final report (UN 2015).

  7. The tem tricontinental world was coined by Che Guevara and Fidel Castro in the wake of the Cuban Revolution in 1959. They envisioned a “solidarity [of these regions] against forces from the economic and military powers of the Global North” (Elam 2017, p. 2).

  8. This is also reflected in Come on! Capitalism, Short-termism, Population and the Destruction of the Planet (Von Weizsäcker and Wijkman 2018), the most recent in a series of reports to the Club of Rome published since The limits to growth (Meadows et al. 1972).

  9. Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) was an English political economist.

  10. German political philosophers Karl Marx (1818–1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) engaged in virulent critiques of Malthus’ population theories in Capital, Vol. 1 (Marx 2015 [1867], p. 357), Theories of Surplus Value, 1861–1863 (Marx 1951), and The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 (Engels 1987 [1845]). For a critical commentary on these trenchant criticisms, see Yves Charbit (2009), especially Chapter 5.

  11. A recent report on Food security and nutrition in the world (FAO 2018) does not consider whether a redistribution of all available food resources worldwide would, theoretically, be sufficient for more than the current world population. However, the report provides data which demonstrate the imbalance: “The absolute number of people in the world affected by undernourishment, or chronic food deprivation, is now estimated to have increased from around 804 million in 2016 to nearly 821 million in 2017. The situation is worsening in South America and most regions of Africa; likewise, the decreasing trend in undernourishment that characterized Asia until recently seems to be slowing down significantly. Without increased efforts, there is a risk of falling far short of achieving the SDG target [this refers to SDG 2] of hunger eradication by 2030” (ibid., p. xiii).

  12. The online Oxford English Dictionary defines conscientisation as “the action or process of making others aware of political and social conditions, especially as a precursor to challenging inequalities of treatment or opportunity; the fact of being aware of these conditions” (OED 2018).

  13. An inclusive society welcomes diversity, regarding newcomers who bring their own cultures to their host community as an enrichment. By contrast, an assimilative society expects newcomers to adapt to its social and cultural norms.

  14. The Bologna process was designed to ensure comparability in the standards and quality of higher education qualifications. It enables university students in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) to choose from a wide and transparent range of high quality courses. It is based on the Bologna Declaration (EHEA 1999) which was signed by Education Ministers from 29 European countries in 1999.

  15. According to its own website, “the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) is an intergovernmental Euro-Mediterranean organisation which brings together all 28 countries of the European Union and 15 countries of the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean” (https://ufmsecretariat.org/who-we-are/ [accessed 9 November 2018]).

  16. The Spanish word asistencialismo refers to a political attitude oriented towards solving social problems by way of external assistance (charity) instead of making efforts to generate structural solutions.

  17. In this context, the term praxis refers to learning through “reflection and action directed at the structures to be transformed” (Freire 1970, p. 126).

  18. This racism consists of a labelling that erases the multifaceted identity and name of the person concerned – well captured in Woody Guthrie’s classic folk song “Deportee” (Guthrie 1948).

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Maria Pisani (University of Malta and Integra Foundation), for helpful comments on a first draft of this manuscript.

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  1. St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, NS, Canada

    Leona M. English

  2. Faculty of Education, University of Malta, Msida, Malta

    Peter Mayo

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English, L.M., Mayo, P. Lifelong learning challenges: Responding to migration and the Sustainable Development Goals. Int Rev Educ 65, 213–231 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-018-9757-3

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