A Lifeline to Learning: Leveraging Technology to Support Education for Refugees

"The increased access that refugees have to digital mobile technologies suggests that leveraging these tools more frequently and in a systematic manner could be a source of support for education delivery, administration and support services in refugee contexts."

This second edtech report from UNESCO, addresses the potential of mobile technology in education for refugees. From searches of academic databases, selective web searches, and semi-structured interviews with experts, practitioner,s and refugees involved in mobile learning projects and initiatives, the author wrote this review of over 117 relevant papers and reports and analysis of 52 distinct projects.

Three main categories organise the analysis of ten ten education-related challenges:

1. "Individual: Challenges that can negatively impact refugees’ learning and teaching opportunities...[such as] lack of language and literacy skills; the disorientation that might be caused en route and during the integration process in new environments; trauma and identity struggles; and exclusion and isolation.
2. Education system: Challenges that...stem from issues in the education system more broadly...[including] the unpreparedness of teachers...; the lack of openly available, appropriate and adequate learning and teaching resources; and the lack of documentation and certification mechanisms for displaced populations.
3. Educational levels: Challenges that pertain to the different levels and types of education, including..." primary, secondary, vocational training and labour market participation, and restricted higher education access.

Key findings:

• On individual challenges and lessons learned -
• Informal learning can occur through mobile solutions in daily life, in the family, in the workplace, in communities, and through interests and activities of individuals.
• Uses include: information gathering, problem solving in new environments, and social networking.
• There is not sufficient evidence on addressing the barriers of low language and literacy skills. "Mobile-enhanced conversational and situated learning scenarios deserve further analysis." Examples of apps development include: The EduApp4Syria competition, focused on displaced Syrian children; winners were SIMA (a Syrian girl embarks on a journey that incorporates Syrian culture, myth and folklore, helped by learner support), Feed the Monster (helping friendly monsters evolve and prosper by solving short learning exercises), and Antura and the Letters (makes use of a pet and 'living letters' represented as wild creatures), as well as language learning and translation apps.
• Mobile technology can enhance face-to-face engagement when refugees are experiencing severe trauma and mental health difficulties, for example, a mathematics game from E-learning Sudan and safe spaces to write and create multi-media productions.
• Maps and alarm communication can support those in transit; transit information like the Hungarian app InfoAid can provide updates for safe movement.
• Connecting both with hosts and with the diaspora community can be done through, for example, peer-to-peer networks like a blended programme in Australia that provided women with mobile phones and free calls for at least one year and peer support training once a week for six weeks and regular meetings thereafter. Coursera and the US State Department developed a massive open online course, or MOOC for Lebanese and refugee participants.
• On education system challenges and lessons learned -
• Mobile teacher training in refugee contexts faces challenges of differing refugee settings and groups of teachers, including refugee teachers and volunteers, some qualified in high income countries, teaching mixed refugee arrivals. An example is the Teachers for Teachers project which trains for teacher well-being, child protection and inclusion, pedagogy, curriculum, and subject knowledge, using virtual mentoring.
• Though open educational resources (OER) exist, they can be scattered and unaligned with the education systems. Some platforms are adapting for  an offline environment, making this content available to learners with limited internet connectivity.
• "[C]urrent technological (and political) structures infrequently document, certify or acknowledge refugees’ prior educational achievements or current progress." Some apps track individual learning to motivate students, for example, the TIGER Girls programme personalises a dashboard and tracking features of the Open Learning Exchange (OLE) system to "allow refugee learners to explore and study in a self-directed manner, while teachers and ...coaches can manage teams of girls with heterogeneous levels of prior knowledge." Also, OpenEMIS, an open-source education management information system, incorporates RapidSMS technology and enables the regular collection, aggregation and analysis of detailed data at national, regional, school, class and individual levels. EduTrac for data collection and monitoring can convey information on pupil and teacher attendance, child abuse, and capitation grants via SMS. Kmobile Schools is an Android-based app giving exact school locations and related photographs, the number of students and teachers present at any given time, and the types and numbers of facilities (such as classrooms and latrines) and textbooks available. Documenting identity and connecting certification of course work and degrees earned is a challenge to systems that might give refugees educational credentials earned.
• In educational levels -
• Alignment with local curriculum standards, for example, for national exams, is a challenge. Cultural challenges include keeping refugee girls in school, as well as teens in general.
• "Despite the relevance of cultivating refugees’ job-related and vocational skills, few of the identified projects use mobile media to support vocational training", especially for youth and women. Examples of mobile for labour market participation include: the NaTakallam (‘we speak’ in Arabic) platform, where refugees can work as language teachers and, in Kenya, Samasource, an organisation providing skills training through a microwork concept: Refugees are first train in digital literacy - hard skills, like using laptops and word-processing,, and soft skills, like demonstrating professional behaviour online. The refugees eventually apply their newly acquired skills to small tasks like data entry for clients such as Google, CISCO, Yahoo and eBay."
• MOOCs and online academy studies need to lead to on-campus acceptance as in, for example: Coursera, edX, and Saylor Academy, where, after "a MOOC-based learning phase lasting up to two years, students can continue their degrees on-campus at one of twenty-seven partner universities in Germany, France, Turkey or Jordan."
• Points of need - skills for jobs, self-fulfillment, and entrepreneurship; shifting to learner-centred pedagogy; empowering teachers to use mobile learning and coaching; blending face-to-face and mobile learning; inclusion and gender equality in projects among refugees leveraging existing resources "to deliver quick-response mobile learning while ensuring physical and cyber security"; and need-centric and resource restructuring models, as well as scale-up of existing models and more evidence on them. 

Both reports highlight the need for more evaluations and exploration of edtech learning possibilities for refugees and displaced populations.