Educational Accessibility for African Refugees Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

Millions of people live in either refugee or internally displaced people (IDP) camps across the globe due to wars, ethnic conflicts, and natural calamities. Although away from home and in critical living conditions, refugees and IDP are in need of, and have the right to, accessible education. To meet this need, educational researchers and practitioners developed a special interest in refugee education in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Penz 2004). However, little research has been reported on these settings, and it is important to take the particular circumstances of refugee and IDP camps into consideration given the number of people affected and the scope of the needs. The discussion in this chapter is geared toward refugee and IDP education in the central African context, a region where several wars keep millions of people either in refugee or IDP camps (Geisler and De Sousa 2001; Kaiser 2006; Salisbury 2006; Burton and John-Leader 2009). It discusses the challenges of implementing educational programming in refugee/IDP camps, based on a review of the literature. It also suggests ways in which information and communication technologies can provide important opportunities to address some educational challenges specific to refugee/IDP camps.KeywordsHost CountryRefugee CampRefugee ChildUnited Nations Security CouncilEducational ChallengeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.