The motivation for undertaking the analysis of the support provided to vulnerable groups in education is
not new. It resides on several anchors, ranging from the general value of just and equitable society, which
calls for ensuring equity of its education system as well, through inspecting empirical data showing lower
educational attainments and outcome measures of children from families of lower social-economic status,
to the understanding that many characteristics of education systems are traditionally set in ways which
favor middle or upper class children, and that changing this set-up is a serious long-term multidisciplinary
task, which can be accomplished only in a series of many iterations, adjustments and fine-tunings –
accompanied also by periodical analytical scrutiny. The current material is aiming to provide this kind of
scrutiny.
The immediate purpose of this analysis is to contribute to the development of measures for more effective
support to the students from vulnerable groups at all pre–university education levels and to provide
recommendations on legislative and institutional changes required for that sake. The broader purpose of
the analysis is to offer a thinking tool for advocacy, sustained awareness and broad social commitment
towards respectful integration of children from vulnerable groups and poverty background in education
that will enable and empower them to seek prosperous employment and live a life with dignity.