Escuela Nueva Foundation in partnership with UNICEF. Fundación Escuela Nueva is the local partner that implements the strategy in the territory. Its role is to generate the infrastructure (schools, materials, teachers) to develop the program and to run the entire logistics operation.

UNICEF Colombia provides technical advice to the national government to assist people in situations of displacement or social risk, such as children who work or with special educational needs. This institution contributes to the budget and provides technical training, advice, and implementation support.

The objectives presented here are formulated based on what was mentioned by the key informants in the interviews and the information provided by the project.

The program seeks to provide an educational response to populations in emergency situations and on the move. This provision to these populations, who are outside of the school system, aims to recover for them a space of well-being and to link them with the formal education system.

Specific objectives:

• Coordinate, implement, and psychosocially support children and adolescents on the move linked to the program in La Guajira.
• Implement psychosocial support processes for families in need.
• To promote the psychosocial well-being of children and adolescents on the move and in emergency contexts.

Learning circles with Nueva Activa School (CADENA) is a flexible education model that allows the effective enrollment of out-of-school children and adolescents. With its implementation, the access, care, and permanence policy of the country's education system is strengthened. In order to provide educational services for children and adolescents on the move, learning circles are set up in temporary settlements, shelters, and attention centers run by the State or other organizations.

This model develops curricular, community, and educational management strategies to promote active knowledge. These strategies link educational institutions to teachers on the move, so that community links can be woven to the extent that the physical and psycho-emotional needs of the population in emergency are supported. Citizen skills are also developed and students are encouraged to participate in the formulation of standards within the school context.

According to the key informants, the program aims to serve populations in emergency settings and on the move by recovering for them a space of well-being that can be linked to education. Firstly, it seeks to restore children and adolescents on the move to their ability to play and ""be children"". Secondly, it seeks to promote learning spaces where they can be academically leveled and then incorporated into the formal education system.

To develop the strategy in La Guajira and the Caribbean Coast, advisors, teachers, and a psychosocial advisor were linked to the agreement. In this process, spaces are created for an articulation between educational institutions in the affected areas, systems that provide services to the population, and government entities.

This program is presented as an option for the inclusion of children and adolescents on the move in the education system. It restores the participants' ability to belong to an education system and strengthens their skills to link to new contexts. After a familiarization with school dynamics is generated, the transition to the regular classrooms is facilitated. This program is therefore intended as a transitional stage towards the adaptation to a new educational system. To do this, work is carried out with regular teachers, so that they develop skills to serve people on the move and promote their integration into the general school population, identifying their needs and particularities.

Likewise, this program counts with printed tools that allow a common thread between the contents of mathematics, language, history, and ethics. During the pandemic, these materials were sent to the homes of children and adolescents, with specific guidelines for each student. During the pandemic, coaching was mainly carried out by telephone and educational activities were implemented to strengthen family ties.

Learning circles include academic activities, social-emotional processes, and support to families of children and adolescents on the move in emergency contexts.

• Educational support: a learning environment is provided for children and adolescents on the move where they have access to education and contents corresponding to their age and grade. The educational coaching aims to support learning processes while reintegrating students into the official system. This includes following schedules, attending school, and generating study routines and educational habits.
• Support in educational processes: through the coaching of tutors, students who are lagging behind in the educational content corresponding to their grade and age are leveled so that they can successfully enter the official system.
• Psychosocial support and activation of routes: activities for children, adolescents, and families on the move who have suffered traumatic experiences or who require psychosocial support in the process of transitioning to a new space.
• Multicultural support for adaptation: ensuring access to formal schooling, opening enrollment quotas, transitioning to school, support communities, and working with families to facilitate an adequate transition and resettlement process. Part of this strategy is to link teachers who share the migratory and cultural background of children and adolescents on the move to facilitate their transition and expand the support they can access.

• District Education Secretariat
• Local support institutions: family stations, institutions of the Colombian Family Welfare Institute, hospitals, and health centers
• World Vision has supported with food delivery, rent, and the primary needs of families.

Key informant interview conducted on March 3, 2021:

• Cristina Gaviria - National Coordinator of Learning Circles - Escuela Nueva Foundation
• Mayra Polo - La Guajira Social-Emotional Advisor
• María Tibisbay - Teacher, Learning Circles La Guajira
• Escuela Nueva Foundation website:
  https://escuelanueva.org/
• UNICEF websites:
  https://www.unicef.org/colombia/circulos-de-aprendizaje
  https://www.unicef.org/colombia/educacion
  https://www.unicef.org/colombia/comunicados-prensa/unicef-presenta-circulos-de-aprendizaje-para-que-ninas-y-ninos-migrantes

The Escuela Nueva model is an international strategy that has been evaluated by multiple academic and civil society entities. Different mechanisms have been implemented to evaluate it.

• Hammler (2017). The Colombian Escuela Nueva School Modeling: Linking program implementation and learning outcomes
• Clemente Forero (2006). Escuela Nueva's Impact on the Peaceful Social Interaction of Children in Colombia
• Pitt (2003). Civic Education and Citizenship in Escuela Nueva Schools in Colombia – University of Toronto

To consult the evaluations of the Escuela Nueva model, you can refer to https://escuelanueva.org/evaluaciones/

This program has a great theoretical background and implementation both nationally and internationally that supports its development in La Guajira. The evidence gathered on the Escuela Nueva model makes it possible to propose it as an alternative to serve a population from a context of uprooting and with the following demographic characteristics: high binational indigenous population, multiculturalism, plurality of languages and customs, different educational and socio-economic levels, and humanitarian crisis.

The results in Colombia show that the program succeeds in socially and emotionally supporting children and adolescents on the move and their families, helping them to resettle and emotionally process their displacement. Including teachers who share this mobility experience facilitates these processes while supporting the entire community to move into a new context. In the case of teachers, the emotional, physical, social, and community benefits derived from their inclusion in the model are tangible and recommended to take advantage of the human and training capital of people on the move and to facilitate the learning processes of children and adolescents on the move.

Good practices of educational inclusion of migrants

Author: UNESCO IIEP Buenos Aires, Oficina para América Latina; Education Cannot Wait; United Nations Children's Fund.

Year of publication: 2021.