AQUA_Bericht engl

AQuaAvailability & Quality

Conference

Lost in SpaceThe Evaluation of Educational Policies and Measures for Young Migrants

Vienna, October 2008english

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Content

Programme/SpeakersProject /PartnersPractice ReportsCountry ReportsSynthesis ReportImprint

Conference

Lost in SpaceThe Evaluation of Educational Policies and Measures for Young MigrantsVienna, October 2008


Programme / Speakers


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Programme

Thursday, October 9th, 2008ZOOM Kindermuseum

Registration

Welcome Reinhold EckhardtJean-Yves StefaniSusi Bali

We Have a Target! What Is Our Target Group?Barbara Herzog-Punzenberger

Selected Examples of Targeted Policies and MeasuresRobin SchneiderMichael TölleGerda Challupner

Coffee Break, Café Leopold

The Pros and Cons of Targeted Policies and MeasuresPanel Discussion with: Dilek ÇınarMikael LuciakElif DemircanAugust GächterRobin SchneiderJean-Yves Stefani

PresentationStella Damm, journalist

Simultaneous translation by V.I.T.A.—Vienna Interpreting & Translating Agency

Childcare available

2pm

2:30pm

3pm

3:30pm

4pm

4:30pm to 6pm


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Programme

Friday, October 10th, 2008ZOOM Kindermuseum

What is the Value of Evaluation?Susi Bali Jean-Yves Stefani

The Missing Link between Education and the Labour MarketDavid KostlánAndrás KovátsPieter Bevelander

How to Measure the Measures?Jens FriebeSusi BaliEva HecklBarbara Liegl

Brunch, Café Leopold

Presentation of AQua ResultsHelene Trauner Emre IşıkLennart FrimodigCosta ConstantiInes Garitschnig

Evaluation—A Power Tool?Audience Discussion

Outlook

9:30am

10am

10:45am

11:15am

12pm

12:30pm

1pm


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Susi Bali

Pieter Bevelander, PhD

Gerda Challupner, Dr.

Dilek Çınar, PhD

Costa Constanti

Elif Demircan

Speakers

Susi Bali is a psychologist and project coordinator for Zeit!Raum –Association for socio-cultural work in Vienna. Her main fields of interest are immigration, anti-discrimination work and empower-ment. She also works as a project evaluator. Susi Bali is part of theAustrian AQua team.

Pieter Bevelander is associate professor at the Malmö Institute of Migration, Diversity and Welfare and a senior lecturer at the Department of International Migration and Ethnic Relations atMalmö University, Sweden. His main field of research is interna-tional migration and the different aspects of immigrant integration.Pieter Bevelander is a member of the AQua Steering Committee.

Gerda Challupner has served as regional director of the Public Employment Service (AMS) for juveniles (15 to 21 years) in Viennasince 2003. The tasks of AMS-Jugendliche Wien include the providing of information, placement, counselling and financial support for young people and companies.

Dilek Çınar is currently assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Boğaziçi Universityin Istanbul. She was a researcher at the Institute for Advanced Studies and the European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research in Vienna. From 2003 to 2007, she was a lecturer at theDepartment of Political Science at the University of Vienna. Her research and teaching interests include immigration and citizenshippolicies, theories of nationalism and ethnicity, and the integrationand enlargement of the EU. Dilek Çınar is a member of the AQuaSteering Committee.

Costa Constanti is program manager at the Department of Training and Development at Intercollege, University of Nicosia, and represents Intercollege and the University of Nicosia as a partner in the AQua project.

Elif Demircan is the director of the EU Centre at the Municipality ofŞişli in Istanbul. The EU Centre takes part in different EU-relatedprojects and is responsible for both networking with European municipalities and raising the awareness of the Turkish public regarding EU-related topics. The Municipality of Şişli is one of thepartners of AQua and is represented by Elif Demircan.


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Reinhold Eckhardt

Jens Friebe, Dr.

Lennart Frimodig

August Gächter

Ines Garnitschnig

Eva Heckl

Barbara Herzog-Punzenberger

Reinhold Eckhardt serves as CEO and co-founder of the associationZeit!Raum. The organisation works in a number of different fields:early education, work with children and youth, work with refugeesand asylum seekers, and projects in the social sciences among themost important ones. Zeit!Raum is the coordinating partner of theAQua project.

Jens Friebe is a researcher at the DIE – German Institute for AdultEducation. His main areas of research are intercultural further education, immigration and lifelong learning. He representsthe DIE as a partner in the AQua project.

Lennart Frimodig is one of the founders and directors of Kunskapsbolaget Integra. The Integra Education and CompetenceCentre has been providing adult and labour market education andstaffing solutions since 1995 to various authorities, such as employ-ment offices, municipalities, EU agencies, and Health Care centresas well as private companies and public employers in Sweden. Immigrants have been the main target group of Integra from thestart. Lennart Frimodig represents Integra as a partner in the AQuaproject.

August Gächter is a senior researcher of integration and migration,with a special focus on employment, at the Centre for Social Innovation in Vienna. He lectures on the methodology of social sciences at the University of Vienna. He is also a member of theAQua Steering Committee.

Ines Garnitschnig is psychologist and researcher at Zeit!Raum in Vienna, and is active in anti-racism work and development politics.Her major fields of interest are migration and social exclusion, anti-racism, feminist and queer theory and critical psychology. She is partof the Austrian AQua team.

Eva Heckl is senior researcher at the institute KMU Forschung Austria. Her main fields of work are employment and evaluation research focused on the situation of vulnerable groups within thelabour market. For the EU program EQUAL, KMU Forschung Austria carried out the national program evaluation.

Barbara Herzog-Punzenberger works as a researcher at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute for European IntegrationResearch and Commission for Migration and Integration Research.She was the country representative for Austria in the program TIESThe Integration of the European Second Generation.


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Emre Işık is an Associate Professor at the Department of Sociologyat Mimar Sinan Güzel Sanatlar University in Istanbul, Turkey. Hiscurrent research areas are national and international immigration,migrant communities and poverty. He serves as rapporteur for AQua in Turkey.

David Kostlán is a junior research fellow at the Institute for Sociology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. His main fields of research are migration, ethnicity and social inequality as well as the immigration policies of the EU. He is the principal investigatorof the Slovak team of AQua.

András Kováts is a researcher on social policy at the Research Institute of Ethnic and National Minorities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His main fields of research are migration policy and immigrant integration. He is also director of Menedék –Hungarian Association for Migrants. András Kováts is a member of the AQua Steering Committee.

Barbara Liegl is the CEO of ZARA – Zivilcourage und Anti-Rassis-mus-Arbeit, an NGO combating racism and promoting civil courage,and is also a senior researcher at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute ofHuman Rights. Her main fields of research are racism and discrimi-nation, immigration, corporate social responsibility and the politicalsystem in Austria. She has conducted several evaluation studies forprojects dealing with discrimination on grounds of race, ethnicityand religion.

Mikael Luciak is assistant professor at the Department of Educationand Human Development at the University of Vienna. His researchinterests and areas of expertise are comparative studies on specialneeds and inclusive education, rehabilitation counselling, the education of ethnic minorities in comparative perspective and intercultural education. Mikael Luciak is a member of the AQuaSteering Committee.

Robin Schneider is senior policy officer, commissioner of the BerlinSenate for Integration and Migration (responsibilities including parliamentary and administrative coordinator for asylum andrefugees, and European affairs); before that he served as head of the Anti-Discrimination and Violence Prevention task force of thecommissioner for Foreigners’ Affairs of the Berlin Senate.

Jean-Yves Stefani is an official of the European Commission Directorate General for Education and Culture. He is manager of the action Observation and Innovation in the Socrates Program(now called the Lifelong Learning Program) and belongs to the Unit for Analyses and Prospective of Direction A, Education andLifelong Learning Horizontal Policies and International Affairs.

Emre Işık, PhD

David Kostlán

András Kováts

Barbara Liegl

Mikael Luciak, Dr.

Robin Schneider, Dr.

Jean-Yves Stefani


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Michael Tölle is vocational counsellor and head of training for unemployed in the metal sector at the Vocational Training Institute Vienna (bfi Wien). Since 1994 adviser on further education policy inthe Chamber of Labour Austria, Department for Education. Memberof various national boards and committies on the subject of lifelonglearning and lifelong guidance

Helene Trauner graduated in social anthropology from the Univer-sity of Vienna. She is a researcher at Zeit!Raum and a lecturer at the University of Vienna. Her research interests are migration andimmigration policies, anti-discrimination, the labour market, inte-gration and political participation. She serves as rapporteur for theAustrian AQua team.

Michael Tölle

Helene Trauner


Project / Partners


AQua Availability & Quality

AQua—Availability & Quality is aimed at a positive (re)evaluationof education and creating job-oriented actions for unemployed, work-seeking younger immigrants or members of ethnic minoritycommunities, Institutions from six partner countries (Austria,Cyprus, Germany, Slovakia, Turkey and Sweden) met and broughttogether different European perspectives by means of an interna-tional exchange of their experiences.

The first part of the exchange involved taking a detailed and differentiated look at the «target group» and their situation in eachof the partner countries. According to the very different situationsconcerning immigration and migrant labour in the partner countries,the decision was taken to examine differing and significant sub-groupings of the target group in each country who were facing similar problems in regard to education and on the labour market.

In the second stage, all of the partners undertook an analysis ofthe existing policies and measures for their chosen target group atthe national, regional and local levels. A checklist of various criteria was developed in order to identify what constituted good practice. A sample of existing good practice of policies and measures was established.

The central focus of the third aspect of the project was an analysis of employment programs and project evaluations of the measuresand policies for the chosen target group, with a focus on the selectedexamples of good practice.

The main outcomes of the AQua Project: 1) A list of criteria for good practice in the area of educational measures concerning the labour market for the chosen target groups.2) A collection of existing examples of good practice in the area of educational policies and measures effective for the chosen targetgroups at the national, regional and local levels.3) A list of criteria for the evaluation of educational measures concerning the labour market for the chosen target groups.4) Six country reports and one synthesis report, analysing the existing measures and policies for the chosen target groups and thepractice of evaluation in the partner countries.

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Zeit!Raum is a non-governmental and non-profit association. It wasfounded in Vienna in 1995, and began its work there with variouspublic and social projects. Since then, it has initiated and supportedvarious socio-cultural projects throughout Austria. The organisationoperates in a number of different fields: Early education, work withchildren and youth, work with refugees and asylum seekers, andprojects in the social sciences are among the primary activities.

Intercollege and the University of Nicosia are sister institutionswhich together form the largest private university, vocational education centre and training and higher education facility in Cyprus,with just over 5000 students. It is an independent, co-educational,and equal opportunity institution of higher education, which offers a wide range of programs to students, both local and from aroundthe world.

The German Institute for Adult Education (Deutsches Institut fürErwachsenenbildung e.V. / DIE), belongs to the Leibniz Associationand is funded jointly by the Federal and State governments. The DIE acts as a link between academic theory and practical work in adult education, providing a basis for research based inpractice and developing innovative approaches. It is one of the mainrepresentatives of German adult education at the international level.

The Institute for Sociology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences is apublically funded organization, and was re-established in 1990 (having originally been founded in1965), after 15 years of being incorporated into the Institute of Philosophy. The goal of the Institute is both to study contemporary problems in Slovak societyand to deal with theoretical and methodological issues of sociology.

Kunskapsbolaget Integra was founded in March 1995. Their mainfocus is providing coaching and on-the-job training for immigrantsduring the process of integration into Swedish society and the locallabour market.

The Şişli Municipality has 450,000 inhabitants and is the local government body for a district of Istanbul. The European Union Centre was established in 2005 by the Şişli Municipality in order to provide information and raise consciousness about the EuropeanUnion as an ongoing process, to oversee certain projects related tothe EU integration process as an organ of local government, and tofacilitate common activities with municipalities from EU membercountries.

Austriawww.zeitraum.org

Cypruswww.intercollege.ac.cy

www.unic.ac.cy

Germanywww.die-bonn.de

Slovakiawww.sociologia.sav.sk

Swedenwww.integra-ab.se

Turkeywww.sislibelediyesi.com


Practice Reports


Austria

National LevelName

Description

Regional LevelName

Description

Local LevelName

Description

Zeit!Raum

Integrative Vocational Training (IBA)A specific program under the name Integrative Vocational Training—Apprenticeship without Barriers (Integrative Berufsaus bildung—IBA) was created in 2003 for the support of disadvantaged youngpeople who cannot be placed in regular positions by the AMS.Through this program, two new ways of vocational training have become available:1) «Extended apprenticeship training» 2) «Partial qualification»Throughout the period of integrative vocational training, all apprentices receive socio-pedagogical, psychological, and didacticsupport according to the AMS «apprenticeship guarantee» for disadvantaged youth (vocational training assistance/Berufsaus- bildungs assistentInnen)

Managing Diversity at AMS Vienna for YouthManaging Diversity is a pilot project at the AMS Youth office in Vienna, which began against the background of the precariouslabour situation of young persons of immigrant background. The aim of the project is to create better conditions for integratingthis specific AMS client group into overall AMS measures and within the labour market. The project measures focus on:1) Young clients of immigrant background, who are confronted withdiscrimination (or non-consideration) in the labour market 2) AMS staff in the service zones and help desks. In 2007 a surveywas conducted among younger AMS clients with an immigrant back-ground in order to gain more insight about the needs and expecta-tions of this specific client group as well as information on theconsultancy practice of AMS staff.

MAIZ – Autonomous Integration Centre of and for Female ImmigrantsMAIZ is an organisation run by and for migrant women. It offersprojects for younger people of immigrant background by focusing on the educational sector, such as: 1) Preparation for the compulsory education certificate (Hauptschul abschluss)2) Job orientation and career and educational counselling. Specialfocus is placed on achieving a certified diploma of compulsory educa-tion levels, as well as work with computers, anti-racist educationaland career counselling and job application training and socio-peda-gogical support.

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Cyprus

National Level* Name

Description


Description


Description

*

University of Nicosia, Intercollege

KISAImmigrant Resource Centre: This is a non-government organizationthat aims to help all immigrants, irrespective of their origin or cur-rent situation. It represents migrant workers and asylum seekers inthe legal field, and helps them to blend into society while retainingtheir own culture, and provides them with the opportunity to findemployment and to be able to live in Cyprus without racism or otherforms of discrimination.

IntercollegeVarious immigrant oriented projects: Several projects are run by Intercollege in collaboration with the University of Nicosia. Variousprojects run at random intervals throughout the year, depending onEuropean Union funding, or the awarding of Government of Cyprustender applications. Intercollege makes it known that they promote equal opportunities, anti-racism and non-discrimination when itcomes to the accessibility of education. Within the specific situationof immigrants, numerous English or Greek language courses areheld, as well as certain seminars and training courses in job place-ment and other employability skills. The University of Nicosia alsooffers scholarships when applicable to certain migrant workers whohave a certain standard of education experience. Intercollege trains immigrants and locals alike in various employability skills, rangingfrom language acquisition and manual skills to more academically oriented classes.

Republic of Cyprus, The United Nations and the United Kingdom Sovereign Bases—Cooperative ArrangementsRehabilitation of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers: Through its Development Plan, the United Nations funds the attempts by the Republic of Cyprus to process and/or integrate these immigrants.Sometimes, due to the strain placed on the Republic’s resources, andundue stress upon the immigrants themselves, the British authoritiesaccept the transfer of immigrants to their territory, or to the UnitedKingdom itself. They actively support and help the Republic’s devel-oping immigration processing and integration procedures.

The three good practice examples that we have identified that are evenworth considering are based on the local level, but apply regionallyand nationally, due to the fact that, as mentioned earlier, Cyprus issuch a small island republic that even localized policies, measuresand projects envelop the entire territory of the state, incorporatingall levels of society, authorities and agencies.

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Germany

National LevelName

Description

Regional LevelName

Description

Local LevelName

Description

German Institute for Adult Education

ProInteCra—Professional integration of immigrants in skilled craftsCentral association of the German handicraft industry, from 2002 to 2005: In summary the project aimed at raising the level of readi-ness of young people for further training, as gaining qualificationhelps to reduce unemployment. Young persons with an immigrationbackground also possess various intercultural abilities, which can bevery useful for handicrafts.

BQN. Professional Qualification Network RostockExemplary setup and a proven regional cooperation network for thevocational qualification of immigrants within the district labouragency. Incorporated as Society Rostock, 2004 to 2006: The task ofthe project was to establish and enhance networks for the vocationalintegration of adolescents with an immigrant background within thelabour agency of the district of Rostock.

MIA, Migrants into the world of workWorkers welfare institution (Arbeiterwohlfahrt), Berlin, 2002 to2007: The project contributed on the one hand to facilitate the further opening of the job market to immigrants and on the other to expand the supplying offers for older immigrants (Kollak/Wiesner-Rau 2008).

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Slovakia

National LevelName

Description

Regional LevelName

Description

Local LevelName

Description

Institute for Sociology of theSlovak Academy of Sciences

Roma teaching assistantsIn 2002, the Ministry of Education adopted Act No. 408/2002 Coll.Together with subsequent regulation, this allowed for the creation of the position of teaching assistants. Their main task is to help children from socially disadvantaged environments (primarily Roma)to adapt to the school environment and to eliminate linguistic andcultural social barriers. There were 381 teaching assistants in2005/2006 in elementary schools, 323 of them in the three regionswith the highest Roma population. In 2005/2006, the number ofteaching assistants increased to 729, working in 484 elementaryschools. Most of them do not have the necessary qualification andtherefore must have supplemented this within two years. After 2010,all teaching assistants must have pedagogical education.

Local Job Consulting Centres In 2005, Milan Šimečka Foundation (MSF) launched the project titled Local Job Consulting Centres. Its main aim is to build a network of local job consulting centres to assist unemployed Roma.10 centres, mostly in the Presov region, have subsequently been setup. Four other local NGOs have participated in the project as part-ners of MSF working in the field. After 2 years, a database of 1348clients was created and approximately 30 per cent of these found ajob thanks to the consulting service. The centres have also facilitatedmeetings with employers and actively contacted the employers willing to use their service. According to internal information, approximately 30 per cent of its clients are young Roma under theage of 25.

Employee leasing in US Steel KosiceIn cooperation with the surrounding municipalities, which have ahigh proportion of unemployment among the Roma population, aswell as with local NGOs, US Steel Kosice signed a contract withpartners to provide them with Roma workers for unskilled jobs suchas security. The Roma workers are not hired directly by US Steel butby the municipal representatives, who have the role of subcontractors.This model is called employee leasing. However, the company offerstraining courses for Roma and after completion they are offered regular employment contracts. Since 2002, 11 out of more than 150Roma have achieved a regular job with the company.

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Sweden

National Level Name

Description

Regional Level Name

Description

Local Level Name

Description

Kunskapsbolaget Integra AB

Job Guarantee for Youth; New Start Jobs for YouthJOB is a program run by the Public Employment Services, an organ of the state, and directed at the 16- to 24-year-old age group.It applies when a youth has been unemployed for three months. It consists of three parts. Firstly, an intensified job search and coaching. Stage two: an apprenticeship at a workplace and comple-mentary education. The final stage is a kind of compulsory job in order to force the individual to search for an alternative. NSJY:This is a policy that makes it cheaper for an employer to hire long-term unemployed youth. The employer does not have to pay the general payroll tax for the individual for the same amount of time as the individual has been unemployed. The maximum time for thisreduction is one year.

Job Square StockholmA regional initiative based in the Stockholm area. The target groupis those people who essentially live on social welfare, and are passedover by the Public Employment Service.

The Job Square buys measures from various outside producers,such as the present company. The program is designed to hopefullyget people employed in providing home services. But as the targetgroup is unusually difficult, even for unemployed people, it is difficultto predict the outcome. The participants often have marginal Swedishlanguage skills. Some have never even been to school in their homecountries.

The major positive aspect of this policy is that the participants become more visible. And very slowly, it begins to dawn on peoplethat this is not an easy thing to accomplish.

Navigation CentresThis is a policy aimed at our target group. The goal is to combine theefforts of all of the public and private actors who come into contactwith youth who neither study nor work. This requires having to look them up directly and to search for them in their natural environments.

The positive thing is that these people are easily moved.

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Turkey

National Level Name

Description

Regional Level Name

Description

Local Level Name

Description

Sişli Municipality – Istanbul

Occupational and Technical Education at İSMEK Through İSMEK (Istanbul Art and Occupational Training Courses),the Municipality of Istanbul provides adult education courses forthose above the age of compulsory school attendance with no occupa-tional training, those who wish to improve their occupational qualifi-cations and/or those who are interested in developing handicraft orother artistic skills. The courses also cater to those in need of reha-bilitation and groups which need assistance in adapting to urban life (migrants). İSMEK is the largest adult education programme in Istanbul, and is currently involved in the training of 155,000 individuals. İSMEK provides a variety of different programmes forattendees, ranging from language classes to computer courses.

Employment for Female High School Graduates250 girls aged 17 to 25 were subjected to a written examination andinterview, from which 100 were given the opportunity to attend thisprofessional educational program, inaugurated in April 2007. Alongwith vocational education, these young women have also receivedtraining in foreign languages and are expected to undergo a vocational training period in several five star hotels and various corporations. The main motive behind this initiative is the fact that uneducated young women who are economically and sociallydisadvantaged face the future risk of being deprived of socio-eco-nomic security, as they lack the necessary educational backgroundand certain specific social and cultural qualifications which theyneed to become occupation-holders.

Tarlabaşı Community CentreThis project is aimed at dealing with unemployment in the Tarlabaşıneighbourhood and creating understanding between the differentethnic groups there. The main task of this project is the developmentof a model which would offer a new strategy for combating povertythrough employment and, most important, the creation of a commonidentity among the various ethnic groups and improved solidaritybetween these diverse social groups. A project by the Istanbul BilgiUniversity’s Centre for Migration Research to create a communitycentre in Tarlabaşı has already been realized. In the make-up of itsinhabitants and as one of the city’s most problematic and poorest districts, Tarlabaşı directly constitutes an area of interest for the Migration Research Centre, which concerns itself with the historiccauses of migration and the problems related to it. As is widely known,the greater part of the population of the district is made up of migrantsfrom the eastern and south-eastern regions of Anatolia, Roma, poorand marginalized urbanites and unregistered foreign migrants.

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Country Reports


Country Report Austria

Overview of National Situation of the Target GroupTurkey and the former Yugoslavia are the countries of origin of themajority of recent immigrants and Austrians with a migrant back-ground. Therefore our main focus was on young people (of the so-called 2nd and 3rd generations) of Turkish and Ex-Yugoslavian originaged between 18 and 25. As most statistics only consider the nation-ality of people, there are no official figures regarding 2nd (or 3rd) generation immigrants thus far. However, the available studies doprovide evidence that younger migrant workers and young personsof immigrant background are still at a disadvantage, either withinthe educational system (over-represented in lower secondary schoolsand «special schools»—Sonderschulen—under-represented in variousforms of higher education), or in regard to placements for vocationaltraining and apprenticeship positions, and thus they are in greatdanger of falling into long-term unemployment (especially in Vienna).

Policies and MeasuresAlthough certain national labour market programs place a focus on«youth unemployment», there are no specific educational or labourmarket programs designed for the target group in order to eliminatethe existing inequalities. Apart from the socio-economic disadvan-tages, job discrimination remains a much ignored factor: Very oftenmeasures are primarily directed towards «removing specific deficits»of a given group rather than focusing on structural or institutionalinequalities. As a result, some measures are not appropriate to theactual needs of the target group, and it often happens that people areplaced in the wrong program. One step forward was made recentlyon the regional level, with the launch of the Managing Diversity project of the Vienna Public Employment Service for Youth. The situation is more diverse on the local level: There many projects canbe found—some initiated in the course of EU projects (EQUAL)—whichare targeted on young persons of immigrant background and in consideration of their specific needs. NGOs and smaller initiativesoften perform high-quality work and are more likely to be engagedtowards the empowerment of their clients. But their work is difficultbecause they depend highly on external funding.

Selection of «Good Practice» ExamplesThe selection of our three so called «good practice» examples wasmade for the following main reasons:

Although not specifically designed for our defined target group,the Integrative Vocational Training (IBA) project addresses alsoyoung persons who cannot be placed by AMS, or who do not have thecompulsory education certification needed in order to have a chanceto earn skilled qualifications. Throughout the training process, allapprentices are supported by a vocational training assistance pro-

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gram (BerufsausbildungsassistentIn). The IBA has been evaluatedscientifically by external experts and—against the background of thelegal limitations prior to December 2008—the results will also beused to decide whether the program will be continued and/or furtherdeveloped.

The Managing Diversity pilot project of the AMS Vienna for Youthhas started to design and implement a policy focusing also on dis-crimination, respective of the non-consideration of clients with animmigrant background. The aim is to gain more insight about theneeds and expectations of this specific client group, also includingconsultancy practice by AMS staff. With around 12,000 clients,measures at the AMS Youth might generally have a wide range ofcoverage of our defined target group.

The choice for MAIZ as a local example was made because (self)evaluation forms a major part of the work of this migrant women’sself-run organisation, topics with regard to gender, all forms of discrimination, participation in political life and on the labour market, and the improvement of the social and economic situation of immigrants are crucial factors within the work of MAIZ, and theirevaluation methods and tools are constantly developed in the senseof combining the «evaluation and empowerment» of immigrants.

Evaluation of Measures and Policies in AustriaIn Austria as a whole, the benefit and necessity of evaluation is widelyrecognized. Many publicly-funded educational or labour market pro-grams are evaluated, in a scientific manner and externally. Althoughthere are generally many evaluations undertaken in Austria, thereare not many networks or developed co-operation on the topic: for instance, between evaluation experts, experts in the fields of educa-tion, youth workers, immigration activists and other relevant actorson the labour market and educational system, where new researchfindings on the needs of specific target groups might respectively interconnect. At the regional level, one large Viennese municipal institution is on the verge of defining indicators for integration. Theevaluation practice of smaller organisations and NGOs varies widelyaccording to the aims of the evaluation, which may range from justi-fication for funding to experimental forms of self-evaluation in orderto improve daily work with clients. One main issue of evaluation istheir level of ambivalence between being a «quality tool» and a«power tool», especially if the evaluation results are linked to furtherfunding of existent policies and projects. This shows the importanceof transparency with regard to the aims and quality level of evalua-tions, and the need for an area of exchange where evaluation resultsmay be disseminated and various methods of evaluation exchanged.

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Country Report Cyprus

Immigration is a relatively new and complex phenomenon in Cyprus.As a result, research on the integration of young immigrants into thelabour market in Cyprus is, at best, non-existent. The target groupof this study was that of younger immigrants, ranging from 16 to 25years of age, from non-European so-called third countries. This selection was undertaken as these represent the majority of immi-grants in Cyprus who face difficulties.

According to the labour statistics of the Department of Statisticsand Research, the number of legal foreign workers was more than47,000 in 2004 as opposed to 15,000 in 1995. It is estimated that another 20–30,000 are working in Cyprus illegally. The percentageof legal foreign workers in Cyprus has reached almost 14.6% of theworking population. Today it is estimated that legal and illegal foreign workers account for about 20% of the working population,making Cyprus one of the countries with the highest proportion offoreign workers.

Most domestic workers originate from South-East Asia, particularlythe Philippines and Sri Lanka. Workers in the construction and agri-cultural sectors typically originate from Syria and Egypt. Migrantworkers from Central and Eastern Europe tend to be employed inhotels, restaurants and the commercial sector.

Until now, the immigration model in Cyprus has been primarilybased on the employment of migrant workers on a short-term, tem-porary basis which is restricted to specific industry sectors. Workpermits are granted only when the worker is attached to a specificemployer. Work permits are granted on an annual basis and with amaximum ceiling of five years. Collecting data for this research wasextremely difficult. Whether in dealings with the general public, private individuals, or official and non-official state and non-state actors, it was next to impossible to gather data regarding this topic.More often than not, people were either not willing to share informa-tion, suspicious of our true nature, or simply not informed or privy toenough information to answer any of the questions posed to them.The nature of Cypriot culture when it comes to taboo subjects (andthis topic is categorized as such for the moment) results in a closedand tight-lipped community, unwilling to share, and not able to takea step forward and act or to share basic facts that are commonlyknown, or at least assumed.

Unfortunately, no policy or project had any effective form of dissemination or source of information. In fact, whether they areeven slightly sustainable is another factor that could not be ignored.

Not a single member of the target group was pleased with any-thing that came out of the government, and they were vocal aboutthe helplessness of non-governmental organizations. The only thingpositive they had to say was in regard to the certificates they receivedfrom the colleges upon the completion of certain training seminars,

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as well as language training skills, because they perceived this as astep towards being recognized as employable and therefore as assetsto companies, etc.

The measures and policies affecting the target group of 16 to 24year old non-European migrants in the Republic of Cyprus are insummary, more or less non-existent. The small and weak attempts to process and help these migrants are minimal and token in nature.Cyprus has a long way to go before it can comfortably say it is doingsomething to tackle issues of the integration, employment and education of immigrants. Only then will the republic be able to face these problems.

All that we could identify that worked well were the projects coordinated by schools, such as Intercollege. Their attempts at help-ing migrant workers are paramount, helping boost their morale and skills, thus making them more successful in the process of inte-grating as well as much more employable. As mentioned, the majorproblem here is the non-permanent nature of the various projects, as well as the poorly advertised, disseminated and random nature of the projects. They are lucky to find immigrants, and the migrantsare lucky to be able to find them in order to participate. The govern-ment of Cyprus must start moving with implementing changes immediately, and do so efficiently. Laws that already exist need to be implemented, and outdated ones changed. Effort needs to be putinto actually helping immigrants, and not simply trying to find away to deport them, or to make them leave for other EU states ontheir own accord, as this is never the correct or moral answer to thecurrent problem.

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Country Report Germany

Social development for young adults with an immigrant backgroundin Germany is inconsistent. On the one hand, the situation of immi-grants in the labour market is on the increase due to the long-termtrend of an aging German society, and on the other hand the partici-pation in usual professional life is difficult for of young adults of animmigration background. A lack of training placements makes itcomplicated for young people to attain adequate training and long-lasting professional chances. Migrant workers in particular remainoutsiders in the working world due to multiple disadvantages.

In 2006, 15.3 million (19%) inhabitants with an immigrant back-ground were living in Germany. 25% of young people (aged 15 to 21years) were of immigrant background. The selected target group«people of Turkish origin» proves highly numerous in the Germancontext. There are 1.8 million Turkish citizens living in Germany,and in addition about 730,000 naturalized citizens of Turkish descent.There is a considerable difference between the occupational traininglevel of young migrants of Turkish descent and the training level ofGermans. Half of all of the migrant workers do not have occupationaltraining; only a quarter have a school certificate and a vocationaltraining degree. Turkish girls and young women are disproportionatelydisadvantaged when they change from school to an occupation.

The text examines the training and job chances of young adultswith an immigrant background and the central formation barriers.The main actors of social and educational politics are pointed out,and an overview of measures is presented. In Germany there are numerous projects to be found which seek to improve training andthe professional opportunities of young immigrants. The projects frequently have different emphases: ~ Information and guidance for young persons of an immigrant background and also for their employers.~ Improved access to training or job markets. ~ Promotion of educational and linguistic knowledge, application-specific training and support for searching for a working place.

Three projects of «good practice» are described in detail and theirevaluation concepts were investigated. These projects fulfil several important criteria: They are cooperative, and take into account theresources of the participants, respecting their lifestyle and workingenvironment, and possess a clear curriculum with a firm pedagogicalconcept. Only the first of the projects described has published anevaluation report and is cited in literature. The other projects reported on dissemination activities and products in newsletters.They delivered recommendations for practice, seminars and eventsand catalogues of successful activities to ensure project results. They thus employed individual elements in order to evaluate theoutcomes of projects, but did not produce transparent evaluations.

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The report also presents five expert interviews in order to evaluatepolicies and measures regarding younger people with an immigrationbackground. The experts pointed out that projects of good practiceshould support intermediation and integration in the labour market.Such activities are very important, because young people of an immi-grant background belong to the disadvantaged groups in terms of ed-ucation in Germany. But many of the existing projects and measuresdo not fulfil the needed requirements, and are not orientated to theresources and needs of their participants. One of the main problemsis the lack of continuity regarding projects. Project evaluation is regarded as an important matter but only a few projects provide information about it. The experts believe that evaluation often onlyconfirms the interests of the project and its executing organisations,or of its political backers. But evaluations must be independent andundertaken externally, and have to analyse failures. We need a newculture of evaluation at the national, regional and local level. At any rate the inclusion of people with an immigration background becomes more important in German society due to demographicchanges and challenges of social coherence. Policies and measuresfor young adults with an immigrant background must therefore beadjusted and re-evaluated in order to solve the problems of tomorrow.

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Country Report Slovakia

Target Group~ Slovakia has the lowest rate of foreign-born population amongOECD countries.~ The Roma ethnic minority is considered as the most vulnerablegroup, at risk of social exclusion, and is thus one of the target groupsof relevant policies and measures. However, the biggest obstacle tomake a Roma minority a target group for policy regarding social in-clusion is the lack of reliable statistical data on ethnicity. There areno statistics on the Roma population, because of legislative restrictionson the gathering of personal data that reveals ethnic origin. ~ The most credible estimates of this group oscillate between 8 and11 percent of the total population, which makes the Roma populationtogether with the Hungarian-speaking population the largest ethnicminorities.

Situation in the Educational System and the Labour Market~ The level of participation of Roma children in the education systemdiffers considerably from that of the overall Slovak population. Accord-ing to the 2001 census less than 3% of those who declared themselvesRoma had completed upper secondary school education. This is insharp contradiction to the amount of 91.8% of all students who hadcompleted upper secondary education in the general population.~ According to research estimates, the unemployment rate for Romamay reach as high as 80 percent. ~ Slovakia has no specific actions for younger unemployed or job-seeking members of the Roma ethnic minority. This is partly causedby the reluctance of legislators and policy-makers to impose the status of a disadvantaged group on the Roma ethnic minority.~ Instead, actions are present in various policies and measures, primarily in the form of active labour market policy measures for the long-term unemployed, under the control of the Ministry ofLabour, Social Affairs and Family. With the arrival of StructuralFunds, a new social policy system based on national and demand-driven projects was established in 2004.

Good Practice Examples~ One of the priorities in the current Slovak social inclusion policy is an improvement of the level of educational attainment of Romachildren.~ The national program of Roma teaching assistants was selected because it is one of the few positive examples of how a successfulproject of a local NGO was transformed into a national program runby the Ministry of Education.~ On the regional and local level, selected projects demonstrate that networking and cooperation with relevant actors from differentsectors is a prerequisite for good practice.

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Evaluation~ At the national level, there is a lack of information and low motiva-tion to harmonize and coordinate specific actions between regions.The selection of good projects at the national level in various strategicdocuments is highly coincidental and not proven by any arguments.~ The evaluation of projects is thus basically reduced to the monitor-ing of reports. At the regional and local level, this evaluation ismainly focused on difficulties with financing programs and thetransformation of relevant institutions (Social Development Fund,Intermediate Body of Managing Authority).

Conclusions~ Individual projects must be transformed into programs, andfundraising must be stabilized to motivate better promotion.~ In order to recognize the good projects which will be transformed, a better evaluation method must be developed. Monitoring and evaluation reports must be written not only as a requirement forBrussels, but must have an impact on real measures.~ Good projects are dependent on the individual enthusiasm of project promoters.~ Good projects are based in the development of partnerships, with the involvement of the public, private and third sectors.~ National organizations as managing authorities have a differentview than the final recipients – the synchronization of goals must beundertaken, otherwise the measures will never be interconnected.~ At the national levels, long-term strategies and vision are missing.

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Country Report Sweden

1) Sweden never adopted a guest worker system. Sweden also neverpossessed any foreign colonies (in the modern sense). Sweden re-mained neutral in the Second World War.

Around 12% of the Swedish population was born abroad, roughlythe same proportion as in Germany, Austria or the United States. In contrast to, for example, Austria and Germany, foreign-born resi-dents have in Sweden roughly the same educational level as nativecitizens. This is due to the fact that the foreign-born population con-sists mostly of refugees, and their relatives and families.

Out of a population of 9 million, a little over one million were born outside of Sweden. One third of these derive from other NordicCountries, one third from the rest of Europe and one third fromcountries outside of Europe.

The employment picture for immigrants has been deterioratingsince the 1960s. Today an employment gap exists, as well as a differ-ence in wages between the native and foreign-born populations.There are several possible explanations for this: the transition fromlabour power to the immigration of refugees; the shift in the countryof origin of the newcomers, which can lead to increased discriminationor to increased problems with transferring educational qualificationsand job experience; and a structural change in the Swedish economywhich has led to the disappearance of traditional jobs for immigrantsand replaced them with jobs that require language and cultural skills.

The target group of the AQua project was young people of foreignorigin between 16 and 24, who neither worked nor studied. How dothey support themselves? That was the main question. As long asthis group manages to support themselves, there is no objectiveproblem. When they rely on society for support, a problem emerges.

2) In our area of interest, the two major gatherers of information inthe Swedish context are the SNS (Centre for Business and PolicyStudies) and IFAU (The Institute for Labour Market Policy Evalua-tion). SNS investigates relevant problem areas and IFAU evaluatesmeasures to combat unemployment and lack of integration.

The Integration Board previously had a very important level ofresponsibility in gathering information about immigrants, but thepresent government closed the Board as part of a process of cuttingdown the amount of state agencies. Our personal opinion is that thiswas an unwise decision, made out of ignorance. Much of the currentreport is based on research financed by the Integration Board.

3) When it comes to policies that relate to the target group at the national level, two examples are job guarantees for youths (JOB) andthe program New Start Job for Youths (NSJY).

JOB applies when a young person has been unemployed for 3months. It is carried out by the Public Employment Service. You can

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remain in the program for 15 months or until reaching 25 years ofage. JOB consists of threee phases. The first is an intensified jobsearch coupled with coaching; the second phase is a continued jobsearch and an apprenticeship period at a workplace and relevantcomplementary education. What happens in the third phase is moreunclear. Increased pressure to accept any type of job is the main theme.

NSJY is a subsidy for employers who hire youths who have beenunemployed for a long period of time. This is designed to make itcheaper to hire such youths, which is the main emphasis of the program. An employer can thus avoid paying general employee taxfor a maximum of one year.

4) At the regional level, Jobsquare Stockholm is essentially a pro-gram geared at people currently living on social welfare.

The group affected by this policy initiative includes our target group.The point is to force everyone to support themselves. An example byway of illustration: our company offers a program for training in pro-viding home services, with 100 participants. We get people who havelow Swedish language skills, those who are devoted Muslims with attendant dress requirements or are for some other reasons jobless.It is a great challenge to get these people to fit into the rules of thegame in Sweden. And you must show people that you care aboutthem to allow them to dare to change.

5) Local level. There are no good policies for our target group exist-ing at the local level. The municipal level and the state level cannotcooperate in a fruitful fashion, and only defend their won territorieswhen they are ordered to do so.

There is an effort through the so-called Navigation Centres toforce the central state level and the municipal level to work together,in the interest of the individual. This is very hard for both actors. Asit is now, it is the local level, the municipalities, who pay benefits tothese people. They are most interested in finding a solution, but donot understand the basic problem, and do not have a labour-marketpoint of view.

6) Another fundamental problem with our target group is that someof them have compounded problems. This is not only a question ofwork and study: health problems, problems with family relationships,mental health issues. All of these things make labour-market peopleshy away, as this is not their area of expertise.

7) But there is also a positive message. Last autumn, our companyworked with young people. These were misfits from school, most ofimmigrant background. They had an immense ability to change andadjust to what was possible in a split second if needed. With littlesupport they made themselves self-sufficient. They only needed adultpeople to talk to and get advice from, in order to confront difficultpersonal problems.

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Country Report

* They are internal migrantsand are the chosen target groupof this report.

Turkey

1) When we look at patterns of migration in Turkey, we see differentperiods which have had profound effects on Istanbul’s socio-economic,cultural, demographic and labour market structure as well as on thecity’s urban landscape. As a part of Istanbul, the migrants in ŞişliMunicipality are mainly Turkish citizens*. The statistics show thatthe population of Istanbul has changed dramatically over time andin recent years almost all aspects of metropolitan life are undergoingvarious transformations because of the changing demographic structure.

2) Most of the children of migrants attend state schools, and in theareas in which they generally live the facilities and quality of schoolsare below average. Some of the neighbourhoods are even stigmatisedfor the migrants in these locations, such as the Gazi neighbourhoodof the city. UNICEF research showed that other school systems fromthe area do not want to take migrant children in to their schools. It can easily be said that the most vulnerable groups of students arethose from a migrant background in Istanbul.

3) Municipalities and NGOs (mainly fellow-citizen associations) areactive in migrant issues. There are very limited activities towardsthe integration of migrants into the urban system and the educationsystem.

4) Migration, urbanisation, gecekondu type housing and labour market issues are interwoven in Istanbul. Most of the studies on themigration issue focus on these themes. Migration issues and the informal market are also two sides of the same coin in the case of Istanbul in particular and of Turkey in general. When we talk aboutthe notion of urbanisation we are actually talking about migration,and in the case of Turkey this is primarily internal migration. Late-blooming Turkish industrialisation and subsequent urbanisationopened the way for the development of informal networks and an informal economy.

5) It is also crucial to highlight that differing patterns of migrationand their forms of social interaction, along with the patterns of housing and settlement, also have a profound effect on issues such as job seeking, employment and unemployment.

6) There is growing support and interest from NGOs and the privatesector towards vocational education, specifically apprenticeshiptraining and vocational high schools. Municipalities also provide various educational courses, and even though these do not directlymention migrant youth, the participants of these courses are generally drawn from migrant backgrounds.

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7) It has to be said that there is not a lot of experience with evalua-tion, as a result of which it is difficult to draw concrete conclusions.However, from interviews conducted with experts and practitionersin the area, as well as those with migrant youth, the following maybe said about the existing situation:a) There is a need for data about the situation of migrant youth in education and the labour market. b) There is a definite need for improvement in adult education andlife-long learning policies.c) It is necessary to improve the quality and quantity of adult educa-tion and vocational training courses, but also to develop a system ofassessment, evaluation and reporting measures and techniques toensure the efficiency and sustainability of the projects. The availableevaluation practices are generally informal in nature and are not realized in a scientific and structured manner. d) Cooperation with various organisations, such as trade unions, employers’ associations, chambers of commerce and other actors inthe labour market, would appear to be one way forward. The mostsuccessful projects seem to be those that are realized through suchpartnerships.e) Most of the young migrants interviewed did not know much aboutthe courses available for them. There is a need for public awarenesscampaigns about the educational opportunities available for adultsin general and migrant youths in particular.f) The gender issue is an important one, as was stressed by the experts. Female migrant youth are the most excluded section of the target group and there is a need for specific policies addressingthem.g) Spatial segregation and exclusion are also important, as most ofthe existing educational and training opportunities exist in urbancentres and even accessing these seems to be burdensome for the target group. It appears that, in general, it is those projects realizedwith international funding that offer a certain amount of money fortransportation and daily expenses, which attract more attention andat which the attendance is greater according to experts and those inthe field.h) It would seem that education is the most significant battlegroundin contemporary Turkey. The political orientation of the courseproviders, private or otherwise, is a big issue and many positive andnegative comments are attached to various institutions in terms ofpolitical positions.

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Synthesis Report


Synthesis Report Young Adults with an Immigrant or Ethnic Minority Background between Education and the Labour Market in Six European CountriesMeasures, Policies and Evaluation

The synthesis report sums up and compares the results of researchin the six partner countries within AQua: Austria, Cyprus, Germany,Slovakia, Sweden and Turkey. Thus this report adds its results to theefforts at the improvement of education and labour market relatedmeasures and policies for young adults with a migrant or ethnic minority background, placing a special focus on evaluation.

Criteria Checklists for the Selection of Practice Examples and for EvaluationsIn order to render the results of the participating countries comparable,the AQua project partners established and agreed on a set of criteriato select and compare measures and policies. Thus a criteria check-list for «good practice» examples and a checklist for evaluations wereset up, adapting existing criteria deriving from an ILO-INTI project(Ilo-Inti: Promoting Equality in Diversity: Integration in Europe)and merging these with knowledge from literature and research, in-terviews with experts and the collective expertise of the steeringcommittee and the project partners.

Against the background of a lack of common understanding aboutwhat «good practice» or «good evaluation» is, these checklist tools mayconstitute a basis for a further development of the comparability ofthe evaluation of measures with regard to young persons with an immigration background and for expanded cooperation within the EU.

Policies and Measures and their Evaluation

Context FactorsLegal, Institutional and Social FrameworkEach policy or measure is based in a legal and institutional frame-work and in a certain social context. There are general legal and social factors that can on the one hand enhance or impair the positive effects of a policy or measure, and on the other hand theycan be prevalent within the measure itself.

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Possible directions for further development:~ Strengthening of anti-discrimination laws.~ Conducting awareness raising and anti-discrimination measuresfor counsellors, PES staff, trainers, school teachers, employers, etc.

Financial Resources According to our findings, programs and projects for the chosen target groups in the newer EU countries and EU applicant countrieswere much more reliant on EU and international funding. One majorquestion for projects in this context is if there exist enough financialand personnel resources to carry out measures in a sustainable way.NGOs in particular claimed that there was too little qualitative cri-teria for the distribution of money. Many smaller non-national or-ganisations and NGOs are also directly confronted with the cuttingdown of national resources, and thus have to find money from EUand international funds. Many countries report problems with thenon-permanency of projects because of the lack of further funding.

Possible directions for further development:~ Increased recognition of the efforts and quality of the work ofNGOs and smaller independent institutions by regional and nationalauthorities. ~ Transparency in the distribution of funding, and also in evaluationif results are used as a basis for it.~ Developing long-term strategies and visions, especially at the national level, and providing funding for this.~ Evaluation needs to be a fixed budgetary item.

Cooperation and NetworkingCooperation between different stakeholders and different adminis-trative levels is often absent or unsatisfying because of unequal part-nerships or the lack of exchange of information and outputs. There isalso little cooperation between projects and measures, with the effectthat they often run parallel without being interlinked.

The Policies and Measures themselvesDefinition of Target GroupsMeasures are often not directed to a clearly defined target group, especially at the national level, which means that they are often toogeneral in nature and do not meet the needs of the target group orthat certain people are not placed within the adequate measures. In other cases, measures are only provided to people registered withthe Public Employment Service. For some countries a lack of data onthe situation of the target group has to be admitted, which makes itdifficult to design policies.

Possible directions for further development:~ Clear definition of groups which should profit from the measure or policy.~ With regard to anti-discrimination measures: Identification of

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«target group» of measures (e.g. PES staff) and of «beneficiarygroups» (e.g. young migrant job seekers) must be made clear.~ Data on the target groups needs to be collected and made available.

Definition of Needs and AimsGenerally, also needs (of gender, age, educational background and soon) and aims are clearly defined in regarding most of the projects,which is also a precondition for their evaluation. Here a special focusshould concern the inclusion of the beneficiaries or participants during the process of specifying their needs and aims, and thus inthe efforts within the projects themselves for the self-support andempowerment of the participants.

Possible directions for further development:~ Definition of indicators to measure the coherence between theneeds and aims and activities within the measures. ~ Ensuring the participation of beneficiaries or participants in thedesign and assessment of the needs and aims of the actual projects.~ More consideration of other contributing factors (gender, housing,spatial segregation, socio-economic background, legal status, language) which have profound effects on the education and labour market performance of the target group.~ Evaluation of whether the measure actually improves the situationof the target group.

Access to Information and to the MeasuresNational policies are often too generally designed, especially foryoung people who must travel great distances to receive access to education or the labour market, and therefore do not reach them.Another important factor is the amount of daily expenses for participating in a measure.

The legal framework may also constrain access to certain measuresfor specific groups such as asylum seekers or illegalised migrants. Possible directions for further development:~ Amendment of access to information and measures by beneficiaries(e.g. distribution via migrant communities and migrant self-organi-sations; active dissemination of information).~ Guarantee of participation for all groups through financial support(e.g. training and daily expenses) and other infra-structural facilities(e.g. child care in schools for young people with children).~ Consideration of the legal framework which may constrain accessfor certain groups (asylum seekers, illegalized persons)—in suchcases, EU and international projects come into play, as they mayreach those groups more easily.~ Assessment of whether the target group is reached by the measures.~ Improvement of inter-linkage between wider local, regional and national context.

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Quality of Policies and MeasuresFor some countries (especially newer EU and EU applicant countries)policies and measures targeting young people with an immigrant orethnic minority background is a relatively new issue. Especiallywithin the public authorities, experts on these topics are not yet wellestablished, which impedes improvement in adult education and life-long learning policies, as well as the quality and quantity ofadult education and vocational training courses.

Possible directions for further development:~ Involvement of researchers and other experts as well as experienced practitioners.~ Involvement of members of the target groups.~ Exchange of experiences, fostering of networks, etc.

Evaluation of Policies and Measures If we want to address the question of how measures can deal in a responsible manner with individual, material and institutional resources, evaluation must be the main tool used to answer it. Each actor at the national, regional and local levels has to acceptthat without systematic and budgeted evaluation there will be nocomparable quality of activities. So the implementation of continu-ous evaluation is not a technical problem but rather a question of attitude and of a new culture of policies and measures.

The AQua project primarily addresses project evaluations (and notpolicy evaluations), in part because that is what is mostly available.

Regarding experiences with evaluation, there are different groupsof countries:

The reports from Turkey and Cyprus show that there is very little tradition of evaluation and not a clear conception of its role. In Cyprus, evaluations are found almost exclusively in regard to EU-funded projects. In Turkey evaluation exists to a very limited degree and more in the form of monitoring or as a mere controlmechanism. In Slovakia there are more and more evaluations whichalso largely operate at the monitoring and controlling level and veryseldom tap the full potential for quality improvement through evalu-ation. In Austria and Germany evaluations are common although notto an overall standard, as their quality varies greatly and they arerarely linked. Evaluation here is often mainly oriented towardsfunding. As a result of this, recommendations for improvement arevery rarely found. Evaluations are often mainly used and perceivedas a tool of control and not as a tool for learning and for the improve-ment of projects. This has to be understood in the context of the useof evaluation results: Especially in the case of smaller institutionsthe linkage of evaluation with financing inhibits a positive use ofevaluation results. Sweden is the country within the AQua projectwith the most experience regarding evaluations. There is a wideagreement on the necessity to assure that public money is spent correctly and effectively, which is one of the tasks of evaluations.

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Therefore evaluation nowadays is an integral part of most programsand is conducted at various levels in Sweden. Projects are usuallyevaluated at two different levels, at the program level and the project level. Depending on what type of evaluation the financierwants, the evaluation will provide process evaluation or effect andgoal-achievement evaluation.

Using Evaluation as a Tool of Quality Improvement at theLocal, Regional, National and European LevelsTaking all of this into account, we have aimed at finding ways inwhich countries with different evaluation experiences and practicescan profit from each other’s experience and how cooperation and exchange can be promoted. The results from the different reportsand the conducting of interviews with experts point to several factorsthat are crucial for the ongoing development of evaluation as a quality tool:1) Establishment of international criteria, clear indicators and aimsfor evaluation in order to make evaluations more effective. 2) Promotion of qualitative, process-oriented, content evaluation inorder to diminish the dominance of financial and purely administra-tive evaluation.3) Promotion of structured self-evaluation and experimental forms ofevaluation as quality tools.4) Evaluation of projects in the context of the program they are partof, in order to be able to adequately identify the factors for theirstrengths and weaknesses.5) Analysis of the needs of target groups—promotion of research onthe topic.6) Design of evaluation procedures with participation of the differentstakeholders (e.g. target group).7) Definition of quality indicators to measure outcome and impact.8) Promotion and support of independent research-oriented evalua-tion institutes with basic funding in order to develop a qualitativeevaluation practice. 9) Provision of money for evaluation at the national level.10) Ensuring transparency if evaluation is linked with funding—finding an equilibrium between quality and power tool.11) Development of cooperation and networks on evaluation practice. 12) Making evaluation reports publicly available.13)Conducting meta-evaluation.

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Imprint


EditorZeit!Raum – Verein für soziokulturelle Arbeit Sechshauser Straße 68–70, 1150 Vienna, Austriawww.zeitraum.orgEnglish Copy EditingHaimo PerkmannGraphic DesignToledo i DertscheiPhotosUlrich DertscheiPrintingREMAprint, Vienna

The project AQua was cofinanced (in the framework Socrates) with funds of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education and Arts and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research.The Conference was organised in cooperation with the AK-Wien(Chamber of Labour).

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