EUROPEAN PRIORITIES AND NATIONAL POLICIES ON THE INTEGRATION OF PRESCHOOL AND SCHOOL-AGE IMMIGRANT CHILDREN INTO THE EUROPEAN EDUCATIONAL SPACE: A COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS OF GOVERNMENT APPROACHES AND INTEGRATION CHALLENGES

This article offers an in-depth exploration of the European Union's strategic priorities and national policy frameworks aimed at integrating immigrant children and students with a migrant background into European educational space.Building on an extensive review of legislative documents, government regulations, and institutional guidelines, the study conducts a comparative evaluation of integration models implemented across ten EU member states.Particular attention is devoted to structural differences in educational governance, funding mechanisms, and the scope of national integration programs.Data indicate that 15.7% of primary-level students in the EU come from migrant backgrounds, though the distribution is highly uneven, spanning from 4.2% in Poland to 47.3% in Luxembourg.These variations reflect historical migration patterns, socioeconomic conditions, and the degree of institutional readiness within each national system.The study confirms that countries with welldeveloped welfare infrastructures -most notably the Nordic states -achieve the most consistent integration outcomes due to their comprehensive linguistic support, individualized learning pathways, and sustained collaboration with local communities.In contrast, Southern European countries continue to experience significant pressure on their educational systems, largely due to rapid and large-scale migration flows.The article also analyses the specific impact of the Ukrainian refugee crisis, which has brought approximately 1.8 million school-aged children into EU countries since 2022.This unprecedented situation has exposed both the adaptability of European institutions and the persistent gaps in emergency educational integration mechanisms, including ( , , ) 11(57) 202537 shortages of qualified staff, limited language-learning capacity, and insufficient coordination between educational and social services.