Revisiting Why Refugee Education Is Still A Challenge During #WorldRefugeeDay 2020

Kakuma Refugee Camp In Kenya

By Andrew Mayende

World over, many refugees are forced to endure many years of psychological pain orchestrated by witnessing as their loved ones perished in cold blood, while others remained incapacitated forever all because of civil strife in their nations. Younger refugees have unfortunately borne the brunt of having to abandon their schooling, ultimately putting their would-be bright futures in jeopardy. All this is because they had to flee to other countries in search of the elusive peace and a fresh start.

My guess would be as good as yours pertaining to the importance of kids being in school and going through the whole system to attain their goals in life. Yet, having become refugees, school going children face a mountain of challenges in their quest to complete their education successfully and make something tangible out of their professional careers.

At this juncture, we may ask ourselves, what are the barriers to refuge education access and what can be done to mitigate the situation? For us to ably break this down, we need to shade light on a few areas.

First, in case one is a primary school-going refugee, they may be lucky to find a school run by a refugee organisation in a refugee camp. These institutions do their best to provide quality education but going by the influx of refugee numbers, resources are often stretched to the limit. This has led to some schools being run in double or triple shifts for all kids to fit in.

Secondly, in the event that one is a high school refugee, the same challenges also apply. Additionally, it would also be a greater challenge trying to switch to a new curriculum in the host country eg the differences in curriculum between Sudan and Kenya and the shift in language of curriculum instruction.

Thirdly, refugees who flee their home countries while pursuing tertiary education usually find no opportunities in camps to continue with their education. Although a number of refugee organisations offer scholarships and programmes to get refugees into tertiary education, this is still not sufficient enough and it’s quite a herculean task before one gets absorption. 

Moreover, one of the biggest problems that still exists in the quest for smooth transition is the absence of academic transcripts. This crisis makes it hard for students to prove that they were at school and have actually learnt up to some point. Being a refugee is never planned. It happens spontaneously. A refugee fleeing for his or her dear life will have no time to visit college administration blocks to request for his or her academic transcripts. Without transcripts, there is no proof of education and therefore it becomes a challenge to get accepted by a university in the host country. On the flipside, even if you have genuine transcripts, it would still be difficult to convince higher learning institutions of their authenticity.

Naturally, with the highlighted challenges in place, learning definitely gets affected negatively. Fending for families is also another challenge since refugees in many parts of the world cannot work legally. This cycle of having to do menial jobs also adversely affects school going refugees since, essentially, everyone in the family including school children, has to take whatever low-paying job that they can find so as to contribute to the family’s needs kitty.

Faced with such difficulties and harsh realities, it painfully becomes easy for a once focused and ambitious child to lose hope for a better future and get derailed. Many are left in a sad state where they can hardly envision a successful future. This state of hopelessness leaves children more vulnerable to sad realities such as unwanted pregnancies for girls, early marriages and in some cases being recruited into criminal gangs.

However, there still lies a silver lining through which this situation can be mitigated. First, education sectors in host countries such as Kenya need more funding and good accountability structures so as to ensure refugee supporting schools are adequately equipped with teachers and learning materials for quality education. Universities also need more technical and financial support to offer displaced tertiary students the opportunity to complete their studies.

Second, there needs to be an expansion of vocational training since it is a viable option for for many refugees who may be too old to go back to primary and secondary school.

Third, in the event that there are literate and teacher-trained refugees, they should be allowed to teach. Among the refugees, there definitely are many trained teachers, who may take up the teaching role and contribute to refugee education as they earn some wage legally for their work.  Additionally, finding ways for other refugees to fend for their families legally will go a long way towards reducing pressure on their children who are forced to drop out of school so as to work and contribute to the family’s kitty.

Finally, it would be a bright idea if tertiary institutions in collaboration with the ministry of education would work together towards developing standard tests as an alternative to transcripts. Development of standard tests that all universities would recognize and adopt would greatly help in vetting students without transcripts and correctly place them as per their scores. This would be a huge relief for deserving refugee students to continue their studies.