Education in transit: Finding the intersection between hopes and rights

TRACEY DONEHUE

Tracey Donehue is a PhD candidate at the UNSW School of Education. Her research adopts a collaborative approach to facilitating quality education in transitory displacement contexts. She is also the founder and manager of the Cisarua General Education Development (GED) Support Project in Indonesia. Tracey has over 15 years’ experience as an EAL teacher in Australia, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Nauru and Indonesia. After firsthand experience teaching people detained on Nauru, Tracey has also been an outspoken critic of Australia’s offshore detention regime. The Refugee Learning Center is a refugee-led Alternative Learning Centre in Indonesia, which is hosting the GED Support Project in Cisarua. To learn more or make a donation, visit: www.refugeelearningcenter.com

When newly I arrived in Indonesia, I had the hope that I should study, continue my own education, but then, my surprise when I learned that it is not possible for me because I do not have the right.

– Fatemah, 2018

Fatemah was 15 years old when she arrived in Indonesia. Now 20, her words reflect on the incompatibility between the hopes and rights of approximately 14,000 people experiencing protracted transitory displacement in Indonesia. Protracted transitory displacement occurs when the country in which people seek protection does not provide for permanent settlement, but allows them to reside in its territory, temporarily, until such time as they can be permanently resettled in a third country.

Like most countries in Southeast Asia, (1) Indonesia is not a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention nor its 1967 Protocol. Without such legal protection, refugees and people seeking asylum in Indonesia are deprived of access to formal education, employment, and justice. (2)

The denial of access to formal education in transit countries is amplified by the current record number of people seeking asylum, which has counter-intuitively coincided with the drastic reduction in the refugee intake quotas of traditional resettlement countries, such as the United States. For refugees in Indonesia, resettlement options are further diminished by Australia’s exclusionary resettlement policy, which limits acceptance of UNHCR referrals from Indonesia to 450 people per year from those registered with UNHCR before 1 July 2014, while excluding resettlement for anyone registering after that date. (3)

When Fatemah first arrived in Indonesia in early 2014, based on anecdotal advice, she expected to wait around two years for third country resettlement. Since then, the global situation has changed markedly such that in 2017, the UNHCR advised refugees and people seeking asylum in Indonesia that due to a lack of available resettlement options, they may never be resettled. (4) This leaves refugees in Indonesia, as in other transit countries in Southeast Asia, in a state of long-term or even permanent temporariness. It further renders an entire generation of children destitute due to a complete lack of education.

HOW DOES A LACK OF ACCESS TO EDUCATION IMPACT ON PEOPLE SEEKING ASYLUM?

One of the problems of living a regular life, a normal life, is no education.

– Ali, 20 years old

Given that over half the refugee population in urban sites of transitory displacement are children, it is unsurprising that education is commonly prioritised as a challenge to be addressed both by the UNHCR and by displaced communities themselves. (5)

For children, attending school not only provides education, but also important socialisation and the normalcy of a daily routine in a safe space. The psychosocial and protective benefits of education are equally applicable to adolescents, particularly as they have hopes for the future, which are often contingent on educational access.

As 18-year-old Madiha, a refugee in Indonesia for the past five years, noted ‘many of us didn’t finish our education, we have lost education, and now what is there for us?’

When children are denied access to education, they are denied hope, and they are denied the right to imagine their own futures. A lack of activity coupled with a lack of hope are precursors to situational depression. When Atifa first arrived in Indonesia at the age of 16, she described her first six months as just ‘passing the time’, saying she ‘had nothing to do at home…I was, you know, just sleeping and eating, not happy’. Most of the people I have worked with in Indonesia have described their initial time in Indonesia in similar ways. At 18 years old, Asad also highlighted the stress of ‘lost education’, stating he was ‘worried that if I stay in an inactive situation, outside education, my mind will lose its capability.’

Thus, while refugees experienced persecution in their home countries, leading them to flee and seek protection in a foreign country, marginalisation on a societal level based on migrant status continues to impede the realisation of their human rights in transit countries such as Indonesia.

However, while waiting indefinitely for conflicts to cease in their home countries, or for resettlement, refugees in Indonesia, like elsewhere in urban sites of protracted displacement throughout the world, have proactively resisted externally imposed limitations with regard to education. Despite systemic barriers to formal education, and the initial advice from UNHCR to avoid organised activities, refugee communities have channelled their hopes and employed their agency to meet the educational needs of their communities.

It is these conditions that have led to the emergence of refugee-led Alternative Learning Centres (ALCs) in Indonesia.

WHAT DOES ACCESS TO EDUCATION OFFER FOR PEOPLE SEEKING ASYLUM STUCK IN TRANSIT COUNTRIES LIKE INDONESIA?

I believe education can make possible the impossible.

– Sediqa, 20 years old

A number of ALCs in Indonesia have been established by refugee communities themselves to fill the gap in educational access for refugee and asylum seeker children and adults. These learning centres are positioned outside the national education system, and hence are not able to confer recognised credentials. They, nevertheless, provide education and its associated benefits to displaced communities.

The centres are all English-medium sites of learning in order to prepare students for third country resettlement. (6) In this way, the students’ anticipated hopes of future mobility are accommodated. Masooma, one of the refugee teachers, noted with regard to the students at her ALC:

They are going to the third country where it could be an English country so they need to communicate with the people there, so that’s why we are teaching them English. As teachers, it is our role to teach them or to build their confidence that they should go and communicate there…. They should have the skills that they could go and make their own futures.

This goal has been validated for most of the centres, as their primary and secondary age students have successfully transitioned into age-appropriate class levels upon resettlement in the US, New Zealand, Canada and Australia.

The ALCs also benefit their students and volunteer staff by providing them with a sense of purpose as well as a sense of belonging. Having experienced the ‘wasted time’ of their initial period in Indonesia, the volunteer staff recognise the negative physical and emotional impact of prolonged inactivity and limited social interaction. Ali described this common motivation when asked why he originally decided to become a teacher at an ALC:

Because the thing is that, like sitting idle is very frustrating for me because, being here will give you nothing, and that’s also, the biggest problem for us, because if you are not doing anything, you can’t be living a healthy life. So, you must be engaged, you must be like active in something so that you can be like good again, like mentally and physically.

Similarly, Jafar, another volunteer teacher, reflected on the importance of belonging and having a purpose, noting that ‘in Indonesia you know that we are like jobless here, and so people are like really bored and so it’s a very good thing being among community and having a purpose, so that’s a good thing I found here at [the ALC]’.

Having been positioned outside Indonesian society as refugees with limited rights, the ALCs represent a mesolevel community where people are welcomed and accepted, rather than othered and rejected. For the students and staff of the ALCs, being a member of a community with a common purpose is identity-affirming, which enhances confidence and emotional resilience.

As periods of existing displacement in Indonesia now average seven years, the ALCs are concerned for their secondary exiting students who have completed five years of schooling at their centres. The ALCs cannot confer formal educational credentials, and Indonesian higher education pathways are not available to refugees.

HOW DOES ACCESS TO FORMAL EDUCATION IMPACT PEOPLE SEEKING ASYLUM STUCK IN TRANSIT COUNTRIES LIKE INDONESIA?

Having an accredited diploma is essential for me as I have no school diploma or certificates. A formal qualification would take me to a whole new level of success and progress. The GED provides hope and motivation for me to be studying in a university in the future and to live with pride and dignity, and also to help others around the world.”

– GED Support Project participant, 2018

Again, the refugee community in Indonesia is overcoming impediments to a lack of education by focusing on their right to formal education by preparing for the General Education Development (GED) diploma. The US GED diploma is an internationally recognised Year 12 equivalent credential. It consists of four academically rigorous tests. The passing of all four tests results in the GED diploma being awarded.

The GED diploma is not ideal, being designed for US-based students, but at this point in time it is the only available formal education pathway, and as such allows refugees in Indonesia access to a formal education qualification for the first time. In the words of one GED Support Project (GEDSP) participant, ‘When I first heard about GED, I started becoming hopeful again and thinking positively about my time here’.

The main reason participants wish to get a formal qualification is to ‘pursue their dreams’ of higher education or a ‘good job’ in an unknown third country. They see preparing for the test as countering the notion of ‘wasted time’ associated with transitory displacement. This utilisation of time is conceived locally as well as in the future. As one participant observed:

GED means to me that I will have the chance to continue my education in the third country. Without wasting anymore time, I will have the proof and the eligibility for further education and qualifications from the moment I step out of Indonesia.

Participants also see GED preparation as a way to ‘learn the different method of education’, ‘know my education level compared to others around the world’, ‘to have what others have’, and to ‘experience doing a formal test’. In this way, the participants are becoming habituated with what they perceive as the educational culture of their futures. In doing so, they are not only gaining an academic credential, but also confidence and the hope of recovering their ‘lost education[s]’.

Another common motivation for GEDSP participants is to help others in the same situation: ‘If I gain the GED diploma, I can be of more use to my fellow refugees by helping them prepare and sit the tests. Hopefully, then we can create a chain of positive activity’. This chain is underway, as those who have passed the tests are currently conducting GED preparation classes for the wider refugee community in Indonesia.

But then what? As resettlement waiting periods stretch endlessly before refugees stuck in Indonesia, without access to employment or higher education, this path of hope comes to an abrupt halt.

One possible benefit recognised by GED participants is that having an education credential can assist them to gain remote employment such as online English teaching. There is also the hope that the Indonesian government will change its policy and allow refugees access to employment in the future. Further, there is a glimmer of hope that refugees in Indonesia can continue their education through online tertiary studies or internationally affiliated universities in Indonesia. The latter option is preferable as research in the field shows that on-site learning in a real-campus context has considerably higher completion rates. (7) A pilot program with a US-credentialed university in Indonesia is currently underway with three refugee students.

All of these education initiatives - Alternative Learning Centres, GED preparation and testing, and access to internationally-affiliated universities – require significant support. Australia and New Zealand’s resource-rich tertiary institutions are well-placed to provide that support.

WHAT MORE CAN/ SHOULD NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES DO TO FACILITATE ACCESS TO EDUCATION?

The most significant impact neighbouring countries can make to the educational aspirations of people seeking asylum in Indonesia, particularly high-income countries with effective resettlement mechanisms like Australia and New Zealand, is to increase their UNHCR-referred resettlement quotas from Indonesia. Or in Australia’s case, to change its current prohibitive policy.

In the meantime, Australia and New Zealand’s tertiary institutions can have a significant impact in furthering Sustainable Development Goal 4 – achieving inclusive and quality education for all – in transitory displacement contexts in the region, such as Indonesia, in the following ways:

Develop long-term partnerships with Alternative Learning Centres

• Share resources and faculty expertise in response to ALCs’ specific needs • Place inducted interns at ALCs • Create and develop connected learning programmes and remote mentoring in coordination with on-site ALC staff • Support the implementation of a GED preparation curriculum through program design, on-site training, and remote mentoring • Provide targeted funding and in-kind donations • Coordinate with all stakeholders, including other support providers, to avoid delivery of replicated or contrastive programs.

Recognise the validity of informal education upon resettlement

• Provide resettled refugees access to TEP programs and appropriate support mechanisms to enable successful completion • Provide scholarships to resettled refugees to ensure equitable access to degree programs.

Partner with universities in the region

• Mapping required of internationally affiliated universities with credentials not conferred by the host country • Facilitate the delivery of Australian or New Zealand conferred degree programs at host-country institutions open to people seeking asylum and the local community. • Fund scholarships at host country universities with credential conferral capacity for people seeking asylum • Develop information networks to equitably communicate higher education opportunities to displaced communities.

All of these recommendations need to be implemented in consultation with prospective partners, with respect, inclusivity, and sustainability as guiding principles. In particular, any collaboration with the ALCs must be responsive to their unique situational contexts and specific needs. The ALC staff’s experience and their shared educational, cultural and linguistic backgrounds, as well as their common lived experiences as English language learners, and of transitory displacement with their students, must be foregrounded as making them bestplaced to teach their students. Like in any educational context, existing knowledge and skills need to be acknowledged and form the basis of support.

1. With the exception of Cambodia and the Philippines.

2. Legally, refugee children are permitted enrolment in Indonesian public schools, but their acceptance is at the discretion of the school management and requires documentation in the form of passports or birth certificates, so in practice the majority of refugee children are barred from enrolment. School fees and language issues are also disincentives for parents to attempt to enrol their children in Indonesian schools. Asylum seeker children are not legally entitled to enrol in formal education.

3. Morrison S, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. (2014, November 18) Changes to resettlement another blow to people smugglers, media release: https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/ display/display.w3p;query=Id:%22media/pressrel/3514311%22.

4. Cochrane, J. (2018, January 26). Refugees in Indonesia Hoped for Brief Say. Many May be Stuck for Life. New York Times; UNCHR. (2017, February). ‘Resettlement Information Leaflet’: https://www. unhcr.org/id/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/2017/05/ResettlementInformation-Leaflet-English-Feb-2017.pdf.

5. Ali M., Briskman L. & Fiske L. (2016). Asylum seekers and refugees in Indonesia : problems and potentials. Cosmopolitan Civil Societies,8(2), 22-43; Kirk J. & Winthrop R. (2007). Promoting Quality Education in Refugee Contexts: Supporting Teacher Development in Northern Ethiopia. International Review of Education. 53. 715-723. UNHCR. (2019). Stepping up: Refugee Education in Crisis. Geneva, Switzerland: UNHCR.; Wachob P. & Williams, R. (2010).Teaching English to Refugees in Transition: Meeting the Challenges in Cairo, Egypt. TESOL Quarterly, 44(3), 596-605.

6. In 2017, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia were the top four countries providing UNHCR referred resettlement.

7. Gladwell C., Hollow D., Robinson A., Norman B., Bowerman E., Mitchell J., Floremont F. & Hutchinson P. (2016). Higher education for refugees in low-resource environments: research study. Jigsaw Consult, United Kingdom.