In the beginning of April, the MESS conferred the awards of the National Youth Council of Slovenia for the best master’s thesis in the area of young people in 2018.
Tea Martinovič received the award for the BA thesis entitled Strategy for the Handling of Unaccompanied Refugee Minors in Slovenia, while Lea Rojec received the award for the master’s thesis entitled Underage Refugees in the Slovenian AE System. The two award winners tackled the nearly forgotten, but pressing and poorly represented topics in their theses and thus brought attention to this still pressing social issue.
In her master’s thesis, Lea Rojec analyses the area that already points to a contradiction in the title. She thus also discovers a symbolic relationship between vulnerable and diverse minors and the national AE system. The pragmatic value of the master’s thesis is important as it could potentially improve the integration of underage refugees (older than 15 years of age) into our education system. This represents one of the most important steps in the integration of a young person into a new society.
The awards were conferred by the Minister of Education, Science and Sport, Dr Jernej Pikalo, and the President of the National Youth Council of Slovenia, Anja Fortuna, who said in her introductory address that if we understand the situation of young people, we will also understand the situation in the world.
“Young people are the ones whose actions and activation show the state of society. It is important to invest in research into the area of young people as it is only thus that we can shape evidence-based youth policies,” is how Anja Fortuna concluded her speech.
Adapted by: Mateja Pečar (mateja.pecar@acs.si), SIAE
