Thousands of teenage asylum seekers are thought to be spending up to a year out of education in a “no man’s land” because schools are reluctant to accept them if they arrive after the start of the school year, a report has warned. Teenage asylum seekers are seen as too old to be easily integrated into mainstream schooling and too young for further education, leaving many stuck in a limbo that leaves them vulnerable to isolation, mental health deterioration and exploitation, according to research conducted by the charity Refugee Education UK (REUK) and funded by the Bell Foundation, an education charity. While all teens are affected, those who struggle most are aged 15 to 17 and looking to enter year 11, when their peers are preparing for GCSEs, the study showed. One charity worker told the researchers that “[young] people – particularly unaccompanied young people – are particularly vulnerable to victimisation, trafficking and exploitation” as a result. Catherine Gladwell, REUK’s chief executive, said that education can have a “transformative impact” and offers “the key to integration, wellbeing, and a meaningful future, and ultimately, enabling them to make a positive economic and social contribution to the UK”. But she added: “For many young refugees, this right remains far from the reality.” She noted that in 2023, 7,290 unaccompanied refugee and asylum-seeking children were supported by local authorities, most of whom were aged 14 to 17, meaning thousands of children have likely been trapped in an educational limbo. REUK is calling for the Westminster government to include asylum seekers and refugees in its new children’s wellbeing bill, which aims to tackle school absences, and to introduce a strategy for integrating these children faster, including incentivising schools to accept in-year arrivals with extra funding, as well as to monitor asylum seeker and refugee access to education. The research drew on the insights from more than 400 people working to support asylum seekers and refugees. While all regions of the UK were represented in the underlying research, responses were weighted towards the south of England and REUK’s recommendations are, therefore, focused on England. Four-fifths of 112 survey respondents thought it was difficult for a young person to get a secondary school place after the winter break of year 11. This was Angel Nakhle’s experience. She arrived from Lebanon aged 13 in November 2015, and after a couple of weeks her family was moved into a house in Dudley, in the West Midlands. While her younger siblings were immediately placed in primary school, her case worker was unable to find her a place until January. She said: “My English was not that great at the time. It wasn’t really fluent, I didn’t understand it that well. When you’re a child and you’re used to the lifestyle of going to school every day then you move to a different country, it’s so hard to adapt to the culture. I was in the hotel isolated from people for a while. It was really hard. If I’d got into school a little earlier I would have adjusted a bit better into the environment.” Asylum seekers and refugees over 16 can find that their “options narrow and are often limited to Esol or vocational courses that do not always advance their education or career aspirations”, the report found. REUK’s research found a number of barriers to education, in particular a lack of available school places and uncertainty over accommodation, including being moved across the country at short notice. “Current dispersal policy, and the constant uncertainty and instability it generates, causes significant disruptions to late arrivals’ education,” the report stated, suggesting that the Home Office should factor access to education into dispersal decisions, and provide more advance notice where it is unavoidable. The report also found fear among schools of placing in-year arrivals, or of the potential negative impact on performance tables from taking children who are new to the school systems in the UK, including anxieties about additional English language support. Diana Sutton, the director of the Bell Foundation, said schools felt “unprepared and unsupported” due to funding cuts and an “English as an additional language policy vacuum”. The report also identified very few programmes aimed at supporting refugee children in their integration, including language, numeracy and life skills. A Department for Education spokesperson said: “Tackling the national epidemic of school absence is a top priority for this government, because we know how important school attendance is if we are to truly spread opportunity across the country. “Where children aren’t in school, local authorities already have a duty to locate and support children back into education where necessary. Our children’s wellbeing bill will go further, requiring councils to have and maintain registers of children not in school, ensuring fewer young people slip under the radar.” This article was amended on 23 September 2024 to add text clarifying that REUK’s recommendations are focused on England, owing to the weighting of the underlying research responses.