Ita Sheehy - "Refugees Need Access to Higher Education"

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Oct 20, 2014
by Ita Sheehy
Ita Sheehy - "Refugees Need Access to Higher Education"

Fellow of 'Students at the Margins' session offers glimpse into the lives of refugees

Ita Sheehy speaks during a panel discussion at "Students at the Margins"


This feature originally appeared in University World Newshttp://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20141015204738526


The UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ 2013 Global Trends Report indicated that the number of refugees, asylum-seekers and internally displaced people worldwide had, for the first time in the post-World War II era, exceeded 50 million. This massive increase was driven both by the war in Syria, which by the end of 2013 had forced 2.5 million people to leave their countries as refugees, and by new displacement in Africa due to new conflicts, notably in the Central African Republic and South Sudan.

One in every two refugees was a child under the age of 18, highlighting the importance of educational services for these children. Somali, Afghan and Syrian refugees account for nearly a third of the world’s refugee children.

Refugee children and youth are in need of good quality lifelong learning opportunities, just as their non-refugee peers are. However, they face particular challenges resulting from their forced displacement. Many refugees do not have access to quality education that provides physical protection and personal capacity development.

Progress has been made in terms of access to primary school, but access to, and retention of refugee children at the secondary level remains a challenge. This is particularly true for marginalised groups within the refugee community, including children and young people with physical and cognitive disabilities; overaged learners who have missed out on years of schooling; unaccompanied or separated children; girls and young women; and children and young people from specific ethnic or linguistic groups or those associated with armed forces.

Higher education for refugees still remains low on the agenda and has been perceived as a luxury in contexts without universal primary or secondary education. Indeed, costs for higher education remain elevated in comparison with primary or secondary, on average over US$2,200 per student per year, and tertiary education programmes require multi-year donor commitment to enable students to graduate.

Yet, higher education for refugees is important both for individuals and for society, not least in terms of rebuilding lives and fostering leadership in both protracted settings and peaceful post-conflict reconstruction.

In Afghanistan for instance, a direct link between refugee tertiary education and positive impacts on durable solutions has been established in a study showing that refugees who had access to higher education moved back earlier in the repatriation process, with 70% taking up work as civil servants or as NGO managers, filling much needed roles in a society in the process of national reconstruction.

Without higher education, there will be no qualified teachers for primary education – exemplifying the need to adopt a well-balanced and holistic approach to supporting education at all levels.

Challenges particular to refugees relate to certification and recognition of prior learning. Refugees often flee without important documents, including academic track records, thus impeding their access to institutions of higher learning. Due to their frequent marginalisation in the country of asylum, they may also find it harder to access support services to obtain necessary information, advice and individual guidance sensitive to their specific needs relating to their refugee status.

Displacement can be very disruptive to courses of study, as is the case for Syrians, with more than three million people fleeing their homes in recent years. Some 26 percent of young Syrians were enrolled in tertiary education in Syria in 2011 before the onset of the conflict.

Responses and opportunities

The UNHCR places great importance on the provision of quality education and has developed a 2012-16 education strategy that aims to develop refugees' skills and knowledge to enable them to live healthy and productive lives and to promote self-reliance and sustainable peaceful coexistence. The strategy aims to make lifelong learning accessible to all from early childhood development to tertiary education, including adult education and vocational training.

The UNHCR’s general approach is integration of refugee learners within national systems where possible and is guided by on-going consultation with refugees. This approach provides a protective environment for refugee children and young people within the community and supports a focus on quality education within existing systems of teacher training, learning assessments and certification.

The UNHCR aims to increase access to tertiary education all over the world, with a distinct focus on sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Northern African region and Asia. This includes all post-secondary education at colleges and universities – in host countries or via distance/blended learning – that leads to degrees.

It also includes training that is technical, vocational, professional and-or para-professional and that leads to certificates and diplomas. More specifically, the goal of UNHCR’s higher education strategy is to raise the numbers and percentage of refugees enrolled in and successfully completing tertiary education, initially by doubling enrolment between 2012 and 2016. This is a small but significant step towards meeting the higher education needs of refugees.

The UNHCR supports both scholarships for refugees to universities in host countries, as well as working with connected learning partners to increase access through distance/blended learning. Strong advocacy is carried out with ministries of education and local institutions to reduce barriers for refugees accessing tertiary education. These barriers include lack of legal documentation, school certificates and payment of international student fees. 

In conclusion, when a country is affected by conflict, a whole generation may lose access to education. The risks for higher education to be discontinued in contexts of displacement are even higher than for primary or secondary education. The importance of higher education for this population cannot be overstressed, providing generic and transferable skills that offer the potential for highly skilled individuals to make meaningful contributions to both refugee and host communities and to contribute positively to finding durable solutions.

The UNHCR therefore continues to advocate with ministries of education and key stakeholders to enable more young people to follow higher education courses and to diversify learning opportunities to empower refugees to work towards their own durable solutions.


Ita Sheehy is Senior Education Officer at UN High Commissioner for Refugees. This essay was written as part of the Salzburg Global Seminar program <font color="#0066cc"><em>Students at the Margins and the Institutions that Serve Them: A Global Perspective</em></font>. The program is sponsored by the Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions, Educational Testing Service, and The Kresge Foundation.