Educating refugees cannot wait
ADDRESS / FORMAL POST-PRIMARY EDUCATION AND VOCATIONAL TRAINING
The following keynote speech was delivered
by HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn in her capacity as a council
member of the Refugee Education Trust, which organised the symposium
in Geneva, Switzerland.
"Education provides the opportunity
to choose, the opportunity to choose peace.'' This motto of the
Refugee Education Trust explains very well why we are here to
discuss refugee education. Refugees have endured the violence
of war and have been traumatised by conflict that most other people
have never felt nor experienced. To educate refugees sufficiently,
therefore, means to provide them with the opportunity to choose
peace in the future.
In many host countries, oftentimes countries
that are still developing themselves, primary education is currently
insufficient. It is therefore a very big challenge when we consider
ensuring that refugees in those countries receive post-primary
education. Nevertheless, if the problem is neglected, it is going
to be very costly over the span of one or two generations, because
the long-term negative effects of depriving refugees of the benefits
of education at this level would be felt by the host countries
both socially and economically.
Socially, the danger lies in the alienation
of an entire class of people, albeit a minority, within our society.
Without the job skills necessary to secure a reasonable quality
of life for them and their dependents, refugees face hard times
and are forced into circumstances that might cause trouble for
others.
We have learned a lesson from developed
countries where the first generation of children born to immigrants
spends its formative years with two cultures and two sets of values.
In a supportive situation, these children may prosper from such
diversity so early in life. However, in an alienating environment,
children become confused and disenchanted with the whole concept
of society. In the latter case, the bonds of society are usually
severed along with the sense of community spirit, personal responsibility
and respect for others.
Economically, the question of post-primary
education is not a question of ``Can we afford to do it?'' but
rather a question of ``Can we afford not to do it?''. When refugees
remain in their host country, their self-worth increases in proportion
to their acquisition of new job skills and societal acceptance.
Thus, the host country benefits by adding value to its own labour
pool.
FORMAL
POST-PRIMARY EDUCATION
Roughly defined, post-primary education
extends beyond the foundation level of education. At the secondary
education level, children grow into teenagers. At the post-secondary
education level, young adults are offered a variety of job skills.
The emphasis of post-primary education
focuses on helping students acquire those specific skills needed
in their future career or profession.
Herein lies a major obstacle to the development
of formal, post-primary education. The high degree of specialisation
required at this level means that recruiting and retaining qualified
teachers in specialised fields such as computers, mathematics,
science, technology and languages is very difficult.
Another problem is proper administrative
support. Curricula, laboratories, appropriate facilities and up-to-date
teaching materials are both rare and expensive. In addition, on-going
teacher training is necessary if teachers are to keep pace with
advances in knowledge and technology. The last problem is a lack
of individualised learning due to high student-teacher ratios,
especially in remote areas. As a result, students tend to be less
motivated and under-achieving.
While these problems exist in regular
schools, they are substantially more serious among refugees seeking
to receive high quality post-primary education.
VOCATIONAL
TRAINING
What seems to be a successful model in
deprived areas is the delivery of post-primary education together
with vocational training. This can be achieved to a considerable
degree despite all the obstacles. The concept is to manage a dual
system that enables students to acquire both general knowledge
and necessary occupational skills. Those who cannot continue their
studies still have a means to earn their living.
Vocational training at the secondary school
level can effectively emphasise such disciplines as computers,
agriculture, electronics, mechanics, art and business, etc. Vocational
training can also be further emphasised by incorporating it into
knowledge-based study _ for example, plant tissue culture and
plant breeding in botany, design and packaging in art class, electronics
and mechanics in physics, etc.
The shortage of specialised teachers can
be alleviated through distance education schemes. Despite limited
budgets and resources, schools can still develop relatively good
programmes by seeking assistance, networking and partnerships
from universities, colleges or other organisations.
A
CASE STUDY: EDUCATION OF REFUGEES AND UNDER-PRIVILEGED GROUPS
IN THAILAND
My experience in educational development
and administration has never been really for the refugees. It
is rare that refugee status is granted. However, in my capacity
as vice-president of the Thai Red Cross, I have, in 1978, encountered
people who had fled their countries to keep away from fighting.
They were called illegal immigrants.
These people were put in camps waiting
to be repatriated. Some of them were assigned to a third country.
While they were in Thailand, it was vital that they should get
some useful knowledge and skills for their future role in society.
We organised vocational training, such as agriculture and home
industry: weaving or basketry. For young people and interested
adults we designed courses in their own language, in Thai and
in English, which we thought would be useful for them. If we were
sure about the third country to which they would be sent, the
language of that country would also be taught. Some illegal immigrants
were not put in camps but they were allowed to move only in certain
areas.
In addition to the group of people that
I have already talked about there are people whose names are not
in the civil registration _ non-nationality persons _ ie, people
without Thai citizenship, or any citizenship at all, and people
from the other side of the borders. The children in this category
cannot be enrolled in any school. If they get into school they
do not get school-leaving certificates in any level. This makes
it difficult for them to get into a post-primary education institute
and get decent jobs when they grow up.
About a decade ago, there was an announcement
ensuring that everybody in this kingdom, including immigrants,
orphans and street children, had the right to pursue their education
up to the tertiary level, both in formal and non-formal education,
in government or private schools, colleges or universities. This
is to uphold the ideal of education for all. In practice, up to
now, in many cases children without proper birth certificates
cannot get into schools because of the red-tape in the process:
lots of official papers are needed and the process is a long one.
Not only non-nationality persons but Thai
people in remote areas or border areas are also faced with multi-faceted
problems.
I have had the opportunity to follow my
parents to rural areas to work in development projects since I
was in my teens. There I saw that it was hard for kids to have
a chance of getting post-primary education. Many of them were
malnourished, which affected their physical and intellectual capabilities.
What we have done so far is to promote
agriculture: growing vegetables, fruit trees, raising animals
and fish. We try to make sure that the children have a correct
food intake; sometimes fortification and supplementation are needed.
Later I have been advised that it is not enough to start monitoring
children's health in primary schools. One should start at kindergarten
or day-care centres, and also one should look after pregnant women,
nursing mothers and new-born babies. We should also pay attention
to contagious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis as well as
drug problems.
These target groups live sparsely in places
difficult to access so it is not easy to provide them with enough
qualified teachers. It is important to provide teacher-training
courses and teaching media. In some places it is possible to provide
computers for networking, as I mentioned earlier, but it is not
always the case.
In many primary schools the children's
mother tongue is not Thai and the school children come from different
tribes. Their cultural background is varied and their command
of the Thai language, the medium of teaching, is inadequate. As
a result, their academic performance in other core subjects _
maths and science _ becomes poor and does not lead to success
in the secondary level. This problem of different languages and
dialects exists also in organising education for refugees.
We have therefore provided vocational
training with various aims: training of the fine motor skills
for young kids, for self-sufficiency of the household and community,
and as a source of income. In relation to this, I would like to
mention two other programmes, which might be effective for refugee
education.
First is the setting up of cooperative
shops in schools. The kids learn the social principle of working
together, discussing, voting and being responsible for their own
lives. They will get academic skills in writing reports. They
learn also mathematics, accounting and marketing.
Secondly, we have to make them aware of
the importance of environmental protection and sustainable development.
I gather that there is no need for me to clarify this point.
CONCLUSION
I would like to conclude that education
is a long-term project but yet urgent. We do not have time to
wait and look for evidence to prove whether the kids are legal
or illegal, for they grow up every day.
It is not an easy task to organise refugee
education, since the situation in each location is not the same;
it has to be ``tailor-made'' for each group, if not individually.
The task is immense, no one can act alone, and it demands absolute
concerted efforts and the sincere commitment of all parties. It
can be possible only through compassion and loving-kindness. I
hear my parents say, ``to give without discrimination'', to choose
the best things or best services to give to all, regardless of
their race, religious inclination and socio-economic status. Thus
let us join hands to create a better world.
The Refugee Education Trust was set up
by Sadako Ogata, former head of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees with the aim of providing quality post-primary education
to the largest possible number of refugee children.
Bangkok Post Oct 4, 2002
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