Mobility of Eastern European citizens: training and development

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore and present a higher education initiative towards the training and development of Eastern European citizens, who migrate to Greece, in pursuit of bettering their economic conditions and, simultaneously, become evolving social entities, adaptable to heterogeneous environments. Design/methodology/approach – Motivated by the motto “education for all”, the initiative is based on data drawn from local and public authorities and interviews that were carried out with immigrants, mainly from Albania and Ukraine. Findings – This paper proposes a learning policy and training mechanism for foreigners and the establishment of a Mediator Office providing educational services. Research limitations/implications – Further efforts are necessary to improve the teaching content in order to be in full conformity with the characteristics and requirements of non-native learners. Practical implications – Some of the constraints hampering the implementation of this initiative are the lack of the necessary financial resources, the absence of legal framework, as well as the shortage of bilingual adult training and education instructors. Originality/value – There have been limited autonomous educational programmes concerning immigrants ' lifelong learning provided by the Greek Ministry of Education, focused mainly on the Greek language and history learning. This work introduces a novel educational structure, which may be established in any higher education institution and which will involve anyone in any kind of subject, anytime and anywhere.