Between Camp and Campus

From access to completion of higher education as form of refugee protection

Abstrakti

The role of higher education in refugee protection is highly contested. On the one hand, access to higher education is promoted as a tool for refugee protection and integration. On the other hand, refugees who want to participate in higher education are regularly confronted with numerous obstacles and forms of exclusion. By drawing from our panel discussion about the role of higher education in refugee protection at the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) conference in Thessaloniki, Greece in July 2018, we provide examples from Australia, the United Kingdom (UK), and Finland. Our overarching question is what examples are there of effective provision of quality tertiary education in displacement and what common lessons can be learned from these diverse examples? More specifically, we analyse the initial steps of higher education programmes for refugees with a focus on access, and discuss the quality and sustainability of higher education for refugees. Furthermore, we investigate the impact of higher education regarding the integration of refugee youth, and finally outline potential ways forward to improve collaborations between different actors involved in higher education.