• Education for refugees

Education for refugees

This article focuses on the Healing Classrooms Initiative piloted by International Rescue Committee in post-conflict Ethiopia and Afghanistan. The initiative aims to improve teacher development for student well-being through research into teachers’ and students’ experiences in school and their perceptions and beliefs about teaching and learning.

Two themes which emerged from the findings are discussed:

Teacher identity: 92% of the teachers in Ethiopia and 75% in Afghanistan did not consider themselves to be "real" teachers. Because they think of their teaching as both a community service and/or a short-term occupation, and not as their chosen vocation, many teachers lack confidence in their ability to be a real or a good teacher.

Student well-being: educational interventions can promote well-being in various ways such as establishing a normalising structure and providing opportunities to process recent experiences in a safe environment. Additional factors include:

• in Ethiopia, students stated that their favourite aspect of school was learning and gaining knowledge. Knowing that through going to school they were on a pathway to achieving these goals appears to be of real significance to the students
• the children appear to gain significant psychological benefit from knowing that in the future they will be able to help support their parents and their family
• in Afghanistan, the study showed the importance of the status of being a school-girl or school-boy. Being recognised by the community as students is very important to the children interviewed.

Implications from the Healing Classroom Initiative for organisations and governments supporting education in humanitarian settings include:

• teacher development programmes should better acknowledge the life experiences, motivations and aspirations of teachers. Basic assumptions upon which training curricula have been developed should be revised and new ways created to support teachers’ long-term professional development
• in areas with acute teacher shortages, teachers who have not completed established certification processes but who possess alternative qualifications should be formally recognised. This is especially important for promoting access to education in early reconstruction contexts such as Afghanistan
• training for teachers in understanding children’s psychosocial needs, often covered in separate teacher training sessions/modules, should be integrated into general teaching methodology trainings
• the training focus should be on being a good teacher for all students and the term psychosocial should be de-emphasised
• the importance for students’ well-being of enrolment in a school and of learning and gaining knowledge should be recognised when developing education interventions in these contexts.

This article is part of a collection of articles on education in emergencies featured in the Forced Migration Review.

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