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Hope through Education Meet the Pioneer Cohort of the Amala High School Diploma By Polly Akhurst
M
ajd was at work in March 2020 when he saw the advert for the Amala High School Diploma. Having fled the war in Syria and sought refuge in Jordan, he had spent years looking for ways to complete his high school education, but all of the options he found were either too expensive or too time-consuming. He had resolved to work instead, but never forgot this dream of completing his education. Edel, who had fled Somalia, had been out of school for several years and had no opportunities to continue her education. When her friend alerted her to the opportunity, she knew she must apply. Ibrahim, originally from Sudan, had dropped out of school due to bullying and violence. When he saw the opportunity from Amala it gave him hope of a second chance. Majd, Edel and Ibrahim applied to be part of the pioneer cohort of the Amala High School Diploma in Jordan - an alternative pathway for refugee and conflict-affected youth to complete their secondary education. Eighteen months later, on 8 October 2021, they stood proudly on a stage among 20 fellow pioneers to celebrate their graduation. This was an immensely proud moment not only for the students, but also for the Amala team, who have been working on making this new Diploma a reality over the past four years.
A new educational pathway for refugee youth The idea for Amala was born in 2016 while my cofounder Mia and I were working for the United World Colleges’ refugee scholarship initiative. We discovered that only 1 in 3 refugees had access to secondary education, 4 | International School | Spring 2022
leading to only 5% going on to higher education (UNHCR, 2022). Once young refugees reach adolescence they often face considerable barriers to entering the national education systems of the countries where they live. We saw the possibility of creating an alternative pathways option for upper secondary completion and delved further, surveying hundreds of refugee youth about the education they wanted. We discovered that the issue wasn’t just about access but about quality: refugee youth wanted an education that would not only prepare them for the future but could help them to improve their lives – and the lives of their community – today. These insights led us to develop our rationale for a curriculum centred on the development of agency for positive change, focusing on ‘lifeworthy learning’, a concept coined by David Perkins (2014). With the educational support of our partner school United World College of South East Asia, between 2018 and 2020 over 150 international educators worked alongside displaced youth to develop ten courses within the Diploma, ranging from ‘Peace-building’ to ‘Maths for Change’.
The Pioneer Cohort Majd, Edel and Ibrahim were among the 25 pioneer students who started their studies in June 2020. The pandemic meant that the programme, designed to be delivered through a blended learning model, was initially delivered through remote learning. The students, supported by Amala’s Jordan facilitation team, studied via Zoom synchronously from 9am to 5pm on both
