PREMIUM students present findings UM-MACIMIDE PREMIUM project

The project was carried out by Vienna Kooijman (FPN), Mercedes Quammie (FPN), Sarai Suarez Louzao (UNU-Merit) and Harres Yakubi (UNU-Merit), supervised by Natasja Reslow (Law).

The students wrote a report about the implementation of national refugee integration policy, focusing on education and housing for refugees in Maastricht. The report shows that:

• refugees are not included in discussions about how to improve integration strategies
• the refugees’ progress in learning the Dutch language is not monitored due to the privatisation of language courses
• teachers are not trained in dealing with cultural differences

Several best practices were identified within the municipality of Maastricht. For example the Match project which seeks to increase the social involvement of students at Maastricht University. The presentation of the project report was followed by an interactive workshop during which participants discussed the findings and best possible ways forward.