Znajdź nas na Facebooku

13.12.2018 National Coalition meeting in Ljubljana, Slovenia

On December 13, 2017, the Peace Institute, NIEM’s partner from Slovenia, held a national coalition meeting. It was attended by thirteen representatives of the Government Office for Care and Integration of Migrants, Employment Office, civil society organizations, social services and adult education centres.

First, the project hosts presented the main findings of the research that was done within the NIEM project, which was followed by a discussion among participants on several identified issues. For example, Slovenia still does not allow access to non-profit apartments for persons who have a long-term residence permit (which includes recognized refugees) on the grounds that they do not have Slovenian citizenship. As this causes a breach of the EU Long-Term Residents Directive Slovenia will soon amend its Housing Act to solve this problem.

There are some positive developments in the field of access to employment. The Employment Office has recently hired two specialists who will focus on employment of asylum seekers and persons with international protection. Up to now, 29 employees who work with all job seekers, worked also with refugees – which caused problems due to their lack of experience. Now, with the two new specialists the job-seeking process is expected to run smoother.

Many refugees have been discouraged from work, because after receiving remuneration for their work, their social assistance received before is disproportionally decreased. Hence a special decree is being prepared which will address this problem and encourage refugees to work.
Challenges remain in the field of informal recognition of skills. There is a need for tools which would allow not only for recognition of diplomas – which is an appropriate route for those that have formal education – but also for recognition of various practical skills that refugees received at on-the-job training before coming to Slovenia. Several tools to handle this problem are in now being developed and tested. 

Issues also remain in the field of inclusion into the educational system. Many of the refugees have not completed elementary school so they attend elementary schools for adults. The inclusion rate is therefore high, however, there is a problem with the success rate. Many of them are not sufficiently motivated and do not see the value in completing education as in general the integration prospects remain vague