Lifting Up Syrian Youth

Improving Regional Access to Higher Education Report on an Istanbul Workshop (The second in a series) March 1 and 2, 2016

With additional support from CARA: A Lifeline to Academics at Risk

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Executive Summary  

Representatives of many of the key organizations running scholarship and academic programs to benefit Syrian refugee youth in the Middle East met in an atmosphere of frank and open discussion in Istanbul on March 1 and 2. Discussions among the more than 100 participants revealed that the resources available to Syrian youth of university age are expanding rapidly, but demand still far outpaces the available resources. Some key points from the discussion include: Participants agreed that coordination is needed of a kind that has rarely been seen before in international humanitarian efforts—including the sharing of information about those who are applying for educational opportunities. Some speakers stressed the importance of protecting the privacy of applicants and seeking their consent. Syrian students face unique challenges, including language barriers, a lack of official documents, and the traumatic impact of the refugee experience. While a great deal of research has helped to determine the nature of the problems facing Syrian refugee youth, pairing research with the ongoing humanitarian educational efforts could result in more effective future interventions. Syrian academics are a largely untapped resource, and they are eager to put their teaching expertise to use. Universities in the countries neighboring Syria need to be supported to accommodate more students and maintain and raise their educational quality. Such support would have other broad benefits. Participants identified a need for a regional information-sharing and advocacy group focused on higher education for refugees, similar to the one that exists inside Jordan, and that could advance the cause of Syrian youth. A post-workshop survey indicated that online and blended learning with refugees was believed to be the most important topic for future discussion.  Following the workshop, participants are regularly communicating and are planning future events to continue the momentum achieved in the March meeting and a similar one held in October.

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Background The humanitarian response to the violence that has engulfed Syria and driven millions of its citizens to flee has finally begun to include giving young Syrians access to higher education. Governments, universities and civil-society organizations in the Middle East and Europe are mobilizing around this issue.

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In October of 2015, Al-Fanar Media, the Dutch NGO SPARK, and the Institute of International Education organized a first-of-its-kind collaborative regional workshop, hosted by Koç University, to consider how to help more Syrian refugees enroll at universities. The event brought together international agencies, governmental aid organizations, university presidents, and regional and international NGOs focused on education and entrepreneurship. At a second workshop, held in March of 2016, and supported by the British Council and SPARK, the same broad range of participants exchanged information about new initiatives and projects already underway. At both workshops, new partnerships were born and young NGOs connected with donors.

A lot of resources have become available since the migration crisis to Europe…. It is now important to focus on creating synergy and working very efficiently and cost-effectively. - Yannick Du Pont, Director, SPARK

Despite the optimistic mood at the workshops, the participants face a formidable problem. The number of registered Syrian refugees currently stands at almost five million. The countries in the region with the highest Syrian refugee populations are Turkey, with nearly two million, and Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt, with just over two million between them, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR. Another 6.6 million Syrians have been displaced by violence within their own country. About a tenth of refugees are between the ages of 18 and 22, projections from prewar population data indicate. An estimated 90,000 to 110,000 refugee youth (20 percent of the age group) are qualified for higher education but only about 5,000 of them (fewer than 6 percent) are actually enrolled in programs. It is unknown how many young people who are internally displaced are out of higher education, but using similar demographic calculations, it could be as many as 120,000 to 140,000. “We see higher education as one of the most powerful protection mechanisms for youth,” said Dunja Markovic, tertiary education associate with the UNHCR. “It promotes critical thinking, leadership, and integration.” Some donors hope that giving Syrian refugees the chance to continue their education can undercut the lure of extremist groups and potentially stem the tide of migration to Europe by offering them opportunities to integrate in host countries. Educated young Syrians are also going to be vital to their country’s future reconstruction. Yet Syrian refugee students face daunting challenges as they seek to enter higher education: missing documents that are required to enroll in universities; language barriers; lack of funds; and the unpredictability, precariousness and powerlessness of refugee life, which makes it hard to make informed choices and long-term commitments. After graduating, students will in many cases face limits on their right to work. “We are reaching the next stage, when a lot of programs have started and are scaling up,” said Yannick du Pont, director of SPARK. “A lot of resources have become available since the migration crisis to Europe.” It is now important, he says, to focus on creating synergy and “working very efficiently and cost-effectively.”

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Young people are very frustrated about finding out very late about scholarships and missing deadlines. - Paul Fean, Youth Project Manager, Norwegian Refugee Council, Jordan

Those dedicated to helping Syrian refugees pursue their education generally agree that with funding now available and a variety of scholarship programs and other programs starting or expanding, there is an urgent need for coordinated action and advocacy; for gathering and sharing data; and for evaluating critically what approaches are effective.

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Yet workshop participants also continued to debate fundamental questions, such as how to find the balance between reaching the greatest number of students possible, on the one hand, and providing each student with the considerable support needed to help him or her succeed, on the other. They grappled with questions about the ultimate purpose of higher education for refugees: Is it to equip them with transferable skills that can benefit them wherever they resettle? To help them survive economically in their current host countries? To contribute to the reconstruction of Syria one day? Or perhaps, for more individualistic ends—to develop the self and to reach each student’s intellectual potential.

New and Ongoing Initiatives A significant number of scholarships to attend universities in the region are becoming available to Syrian students. This year SPARK, with support from the Dutch government, has granted scholarships to 1,500 Syrian students in Iraq (KRG), Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. It plans to grant 3,500 scholarships in 2016 and ten thousand in total. Its partners include the Lebanese Association for Scientific Research, which will help 460 Syrian students enroll at private universities in Lebanon in 2016, and Gaziantep University, in eastern Turkey, which currently has 1,300 Syrian students. To support scholarship recipients, SPARK is setting up centers for students that will provide psychosocial and educational counseling, and is working on an economic empowerment program to ensure the eventual transition of students into the workplace. Another scholarship program, the Higher and Further Education Opportunities and Perspectives for Syrians (HOPES) program, is funded by the European Union’s Madad Fund and administered by the German Academic Exchange Program (DAAD), the British Council, Campus France and EP-Nuffic, the Netherlands’ organization for international cooperation in higher education. The HOPES program expects to disburse 400 scholarships to Syrian students, provide English classes to 4,000, and provide educational counseling to over 42,000. Another element of the program is small grants for creditbased short courses and other innovative programs that universities in the region develop. The Al Fakhoora Program, funded by Qatar’s Education Above All Foundation, will grant 800 scholarships to Syrian students. It has begun pilot projects in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. The program was first developed for Palestinian students and has a comprehensive approach that emphasizes student services, leadership training and the economic empowerment of the student and his or her family.  In one of the oldest programs for refugee youth, UNHCR has been giving university scholarships since 1992; its DAFI program enrolls 2,240 refugee students each year. Markovic said she has never seen demand for higher education as high as current levels, and that she expects to see a significant increase in the program to meet it, with as many as 1,700 new scholarships coming soon for Syrian students. 

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We urgently need one trusted platform through which [students] can deal comfortably with educational institutions. - Suhaib AlChihabi, Syrian student and founder of SSOUS, which supports Syrian students

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has received $5 million from Kuwait to provide higher education to young Syrians, and a majority of the funds will go toward scholarships at universities in the region.

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There was a plea from workshop participants, however, to get information out in a more coordinated way. “Young people are very frustrated about finding out very late about scholarships and missing deadlines,” said Paul Fean, youth project manager at the Norwegian Refugee Council, in Jordan. “There needs to be a lot more clarity on deadlines, criteria and eligibility.” Suhaib AlChihabi, a Syrian student and the founder of an organization, SSOUS, which helps Syrian students get information about Turkish universities, said “We urgently need one trusted platform through which we can deal comfortably with educational institutions.”

Challenges: Documentation, Language, and Drop-outs The biggest and most persistent obstacle that Syrian refugee students face is their need for documentation to get access to education. In many cases, refugees flee their country under military attack or at risk of imprisonment and without the necessary transcripts, diplomas, and other academic papers that are usually required for enrollment at universities. UNHCR advises students outside Syria against going to Syrian embassies to try to obtain documents, because they face the possibility of harassment or arrest, as do relatives inside Syria who try to obtain documents for them. One organization in Jordan said that out of 400 applicants for a scholarship program, only 130 had the necessary documents to enroll at a Jordanian university. Turkey has experimented with using exams to test proficiency, instead of insisting on documents. Gaziantep University has admitted 100 SPARK scholarship students under the precondition that all of them will take this exam during the summer. The Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education (NOKUT) verifies degrees for refugees through an extensive interview process that could also be a model for others to try. As in the first workshop, there were again calls for the creation of a secure online database, overseen by a respected international agency that could house the details of individuals’ academic progress. Such a system, participants stressed, should keep track of the courses students have taken, not just their degrees, so they can transfer credits if they move from one place to another. Aside from documentation, language is the main obstacle for Syrian students in Turkey, said Yavuz Coşkun, rector of Gaziantep University, which offers free Turkish language classes in refugee camps for potential university students and has established the first Arabic-language degree program at a university in Turkey. Even in Arabic-speaking countries, universities often require English for enrollment in some faculties, such as medicine and engineering, or for graduate degrees. Online learning materials are also overwhelmingly in English. Universities that have scholarship programs for Syrians, such as the American University in Beirut, may offer a preparatory year; some NGOs working with Syrian refugees have developed their own tailor-made language classes.

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In Jordan, Language and Academic Skills and E-learning Resources (LASER)—a three-year program that began in September of 2015—is funded by the European Union and administered by the British Council. The program combines language and academic training. It targets Syrians and disadvantaged Jordanians aged 18 to 30. Its goal is to enroll 3,100 students in its language courses (offered in English, French and German) by mid2017. Students can move on to enroll in short MOOCs in English or Arabic; 350 students will eventually be selected to take online courses from Open University and Amity University. Sally Ward, the British Council’s regional manager for higher education, said that 900 students have enrolled in the program so far, and that the British Council is advertising it through community partners, and not just on Facebook. The program administrators also realize that participants are under great financial strain and often need travel payments or daily allowances. The importance of facilitators, who provide learning and administrative support, has become evident. Ward also noted that students are applying to multiple programs, which makes them less committed and more prone to dropping out as soon as they feel they have a better opportunity elsewhere. Most students in LASER, while they have academic credentials, lack adequate English and computer skills, and are often not used to studying and working on their own. Participants agreed that language learning should be integrated into the earliest stages of education programs. They also emphasized the need for bilingual community liaisons with refugee communities. Some argued that the need to acquire another language should be viewed as an opportunity rather than a barrier—language acquisition can be a chance for integration into the host country, or for a student to gain a transferable skill that can benefit him or her anywhere. Others suggested that peer-to-peer education could be a cost-effective means to improve students’ language skills. Even when students have the documents and language skills necessary to access higher education, their success is not ensured. “The biggest problem you face is the first two weeks. Students will disappear,” said Mustapha Jazar of the Lebanese Association for Scientific Research (LASeR), an NGO that grants Syrian students scholarships to study at discounted rates at Lebanese universities. To address the problem of dropouts, LASeR has relied on a network of local support organizations to follow up with students who seem to be struggling or stop attending class.

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Programs need to make sure that students don’t only go to university but that they get this full package of support. - Henrike Hilgenfeld, Project Advisor, GIZ

Quantity Versus Quality Demand for educational opportunities is high among Syrian refugees, and large numbers of eligible candidates can be found through online registration and outreach in refugee camps; SPARK has registered over 5,000 applicants since July of 2015. Given the trauma, uncertainty, and precariousness of the refugees’ lives, most refugee students will only succeed if they receive a significant amount of support. This includes financial and logistical support, including stipends that cover the cost of housing, transportation and books, and offset the loss of income to refugee families of having a young person study rather than work. In addition, students need counseling; language classes; training in computers and other soft skills; and opportunities to connect with each other and the surrounding community. Programs need to “make sure that students don’t only go to university but that they get this full package of support,” says Henrike Hilgenfeld, project advisor to a German government program that awards scholarships to Syrians and disadvantaged Jordanians to pursue masters degrees at Jordanian universities. In addition to a scholarship and stipend, the program offers students career counseling, tutoring, psychosocial support, training in leadership and conflict resolution, and a chance to volunteer in social projects. “Syrians students need hope, dignity, and to have confidence in the future,” said Jazar, of LASeR. “As refugees, they feel like numbers.” Encouraging students to support each other may be helpful. “If I can change a small thing around me or help someone in a small way—spread the spirit of volunteerism—I feel I’ve had an effect,” said Ahmad Abu AlShaar of the Syrian student group Molham, whose volunteers advise and aid fellow students as part of their wider humanitarian efforts. “The volunteer himself is a refugee,” said Abu AlShaar, “and his experience helps him relate to the conditions of the students he’s helping.”

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Syrians students need hope, dignity, and to have confidence in the future. As refugees, they feel like numbers. - Mustapha Jazar, Lebanese Association for Scientific Research (LASeR)

Online Education Some organizations hope digital learning will be a way to connect large numbers of refugees with educational opportunities. Kiron, a Germanybased NGO, seeks to offer degrees in engineering, business and economics, computer science and social science (with fields of interest such as pedagogy, social work and intercultural communications), based on accredited MOOCs. The plan is for students to study online for two years and then transfer to one of Kiron’s 24 partner universities. Kiron has already enrolled 1,250 students and seeks to enroll 5,000 more by the end of the year. Barbara Moser-Mercer is the director of InZone, a program at the University of Geneva that works to develop “innovative approaches to multilingual communication and higher education” in areas of crisis and conflict. InZone has designed facilities, courses and certificates that it offers in refugee camps. It makes use of distance learning, but Moser-Mercer emphasized that technology is only part of the solution. Refugee students taking online courses struggle with connectivity problems (they often cannot play videos embedded in educational materials, for example) and have particular difficulty with unfamiliar learning methods and academic cultures, and quizzes that contain difficult linguistic nuances. InZone’s program evaluations and surveys have found that the biggest factor in student success is face-to-face tutoring to support online learning. InZone employs trained facilitators to contextualize its digital materials. “Digital learning without on-the-ground support is irresponsible,” Moser-Mercer argued. InZone creates learning and meeting spaces in refugee camps and involves students in the design of courses and facilities.

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In the Arab world, however, online degrees are usually not recognized. The Jordanian Ministry of Higher Education is considering recognizing some online degrees, in fields such as humanities and administration, but has said it needs to develop certification and quality-control standards. The refugee crisis may be a springboard for changing perceptions about online education, as education ministries start to recognize the potential value of online learning.

Studying For What? Markovic of UNHCR emphasized that a scholarship is “a huge investment in an individual. We need to ensure efforts we are making now aren’t wasted in a year’s time.” Pursuing an education is also a huge investment on the part of each refugee student and his or her family, who may have many more pressing daily problems. Another important question raised by the workshop discussions is how the education that students gain will improve young Syrians’ lives. “The easy part is sending them to university. What’s going to happen after that, that is the question,” said Farooz Burney, director of the Al Fakhoora program. Some at the workshop speculated that the interests of Syrians students, who may want to make a home elsewhere, are opposed to the long-term interests of Syria. Others responded that education providers’ role is to teach academic and professional skills and to create potential, not to dictate people’s future

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Digital learning without on-the-ground support is irresponsible. - Barbara Moser-Mercer, Director, InZone, University of Geneva

homes. No one approach will be able to meet all of the educational needs of Syrian refugees, who have different interests, abilities and life plans, participants said. It will be necessary to offer a flexible combination of different programs, both vocational and academic, in a variety of settings, levels and languages. The countries neighboring Syria do not generally issue work permits to Syrians, although Turkey began a more lenient work permit program in January. In these neighbor countries, which already suffer from high youth unemployment, the refugees are often viewed as competitors for jobs even if under current circumstances they often take the menial jobs that locals don’t want. Participants discussed the importance of keeping the feelings of host communities in mind (by offering disadvantaged local students some scholarships as well, for example) and emphasizing the ways in which refugees can be a resource rather than a burden. Syrian business people could, for instance, be encouraged to open businesses and start projects in host countries. “We need campaigns as effective as those of militias, to attract young people to vocational, continuing, and business training programs,” said Rami Sharrack, executive director of the Syrian Economic Forum, a business leaders’ think tank that also offers young Syrians in Turkey and Syria courses on practical professional and entrepreneurial skills. LASeR, which will grant 420 scholarships in 2016, hopes to increase the employment of graduates by focusing its scholarships on education-related degrees. It is encouraging students to pursue a teaching diploma after their bachelor’s degree so they can teach in the refugee camps.

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With EU support, Jordan is planning the creation of five new “special economic zones”—industrial parks that will give business tax and tariff incentives. Up to two thirds of jobs in the zones would reportedly be given to Syrians. But the project is in the planning stages and the number of jobs—which would largely be unskilled ones—depends on private investment, so the plan has plenty of skeptics.

A Chance for Universities in the Region to Grow “I advise you to get local universities involved in your activities,” the president of Hashemite University in Jordan told workshop participants. Local universities do play a key role in most scholarship programs—it is on their campuses that Syrian students are expected to study—but some said they would like to be more involved with programs at the design phase. Gaziantep University, which has had strong engagement with Syrian refugees, has benefitted from several factors in creating its programs. It had close connections with Syria even before the war, including with the University of Aleppo. It also has a significant degree of independence in its decision-making, and an openness and ability to work with many different local and international partners. In 2015, SPARK signed agreements with a variety of higher education institutions, organizations and national authorities in the region to enroll

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We need campaigns as effective as those of militias to attract young people to vocational, continuing, and business training programs. - Rami Sharrack, Executive Director, Syrian Economic Forum

students. In Lebanon, the American University of Beirut offered a 35 percent discount on selected certified short courses, tailored to the needs of students. In the area of Iraq controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government, the Ministry of Higher Education agreed to place 300 students at public universities. In Turkey, the University of Gaziantep accepted 123 SPARK students, of whom 98 recently started a program taught in Arabic.

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Given the role that universities in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey play in educating thousands of Syrians, donors and Western universities are aware that educational programs for refugees should include ways to strengthen these institutions. This, participants said, is an opportunity for greater contact and collaboration with the international academic community and experimentations with new teaching methods, materials and technologies. Meredith Woo, director of the higher education support program at the Open Society Foundation, said the current crisis may have “a silver lining” by inspiring “immense institutional innovation” in higher education.

A Role for Syrian Academics? Thousands of Syrian academics have fled their country. They face the same plight as other refugees, and they have also been targeted, as intellectuals, by extremists and by the Assad regime. “I’ve been rather shocked by the way Syrian academics have been overlooked as resources” for the educational programs being started to support Syrian students, said Kate Robertson, a consultant with the Council for At-Risk Academics (CARA), which helps academics in exile. Too often, education providers tend to view the involvement of Syrian academics as “a complication,” Robertson said, but she believes there are significant longterm benefits to encouraging this involvement. Engaging Syrian academics in the education of Syrian refugee students could be crucial in the development and reconstruction of Syria’s higher education sector in the future. Many of these academics are eager to contribute, said Ammar Alibrahim, president of the Union of Free Syrian Academics. Abdul Hafez, of the Syrian Society for Scientific Research. Alibrahim said Syrian academics, despite the dangers they often face, “want to be part of the fundamental solution” to the refugee crisis. Abdul Hafez’ NGO, established in 2013, includes about a hundred Syrian academics at institutions around the world. It has tried, despite limited resources, to support their research and ability to publish, in addition to holding workshops, granting a handful of scholarships, and translating educational materials into Arabic. “Our aim is to participate in providing higher education to refugees,” Abdul Hafez said. The Jamiya project is a new venture created by volunteers that hopes to use online platforms and local partners in the region to provide Arabic-language courses for Syrian refugees that will accredited by European universities. The project will include Syrian academics in its efforts. It has surveyed 900 Syrian refugees about their educational needs and challenges. Officials from the Syrian Interim Government, an organization acknowledged as an alternative government for Syria by some countries, called for more engagement with universities, academics and students within the territories not controlled by the Assad regime or the Islamic State. Imad Bark, the higher education minister of the interim government, reminded workshop participants that there are 150,000 young Syrians within the country whose university studies have been interrupted. He called on host countries to

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recognize academic degrees issued by the interim authorities (only Turkey and France do so at the moment). He and other government officials expressed appreciation for the workshop’s goals and frustration that more cannot be done at the moment for those who remain in Syria. A few innovative pilot projects are taking place, such as one funded by the European Union that trains young Syrians at agricultural institutes and seeks to help solve food insecurity in the war-torn country. But the infrastructure needs are immense. The rebel territories have lost 95 percent of their medical staff, for example, and Minister of Health Wajih Jumaa said a comprehensive strategy is needed to train new medical personnel, including administrators, and to reintegrate existing ones when the war ends.

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Next Steps Research, Mapping and Advocacy Participants in the workshop suggested a number of steps to take in the near future. These include coordination of the scholarship selection by sharing student applications between reputable organizations; the convening of a smaller follow-up meeting to focus on online and blended learning for refugees; the creation (perhaps on the Al-Fanar Media web site) of a page dedicated to gathering all relevant research on providing education to Syrian (and other) refugees and a strategic mapping of the degrees for which scholarships are being awarded, keeping in mind the employment needs of Syria and its neighbors. More generally, a resource listing the type, location and scale of all of the various projects delivering higher education to Syrian refugees would be useful, participants said. Education providers need to have a comprehensive grasp of the legal and regulatory frameworks in host countries that govern refugees’ right to education and employment, as well as university admission requirements and the recognition of online courses and degrees. UNESCO plans to carry out a study on the legal frameworks and policies governing the provision of higher education to refugees, said Abdel Moneim Osman, a consultant to the organization. This year UNESCO will also be reviewing the statutes governing the recognition and equivalency of refugees’ educational qualifications. It was suggested that the time might be right to try to reform some of these statutes. Several participants expressed an interest in creating a regional advocacy group, which could generate and present data on the educational needs of Syrian refugees and lobby for changes in education policies in host countries. This group, participants said, should include Syrian academics. In addition, Syrian students could help carry out surveys and research. This group could also work on designing what Syrian higher education should or could look like in the future. There was also general agreement that it would be useful to follow students who are beneficiaries of programs in the years to come, in order to evaluate their outcomes. The single most important question to answer, said MoserMercer of InZone, will be: “What factors enable Syrian students to succeed in higher education?”

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The chief author of this report was Ursula Lindsey, a Morocco-based Al-Fanar Media correspondent and freelance journalist. The photographs on the cover are from the Associated Press.The photographs inside the report were taken by Batu Tezyüksel.

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