EDUCATION IS NECESSARY:
FORCED MIGRATION, EDUCATION AND HARMONIZATION
Dr. Başak YAVÇAN
Lecturer at TOBB University
29th December 2017
Harmonisation in the field of Education, harmony is both a goal in its own right and an instrument to achieve harmonisation in other areas. Access to education is recognised as a human right in international treaties, it also opens doors for economic cohesion by providing students with the necessary qualifications to join the labour market. In the long term it increases the contribution of this disadvantaged group to the host’s country's economy. Moreover, education prevents students from being marginalized and becoming radicalized. It also facilitates interaction between the local community and the migrant community, increasing positive communication with their peers, thereby promoting the process of harmonisation.
The creation of a middle class that will continue to socialise with the host community for many years, and the establishment of positive role models, will promote social cohesion. In addition to this, providing asylum seekers with knowledge on the social history, values and political culture of the country they live in, through history, citizenship and art courses, promotes future political harmonisation. Policies produced and implemented in the field of education are of great importance due to their short and long term effects on the process of harmonisation.
As one can see in below population pyramid, the number of school-aged asylum seekers has reached one million people. In addition, the breadth of the lower pillars of the pyramid draws attention to the high birth rates, pointing at the fact that an increasing amount of asylum-seeker children will soon be in need of receiving education. Any newly developed educational policies will have to take this into account and meet their expectations and needs, to ensure social inclusion. Age and gender distribution of Syrians under Temporary Protection (14.9.2017)
Initially the question of education was treated with temporary solutions, providing education to asylum seekers in camps and establishing temporary training centres outside the camp. By 2015, the school attendance in the camps was high, however outside of the camps only about 20 per cent of refugee children outside the camps attended schools. During this period, access to school increased to the highest level today as the result of the efforts of the Ministry of National Education, lecturers in schools and NGOs who carried out field studies and need assessments. The Ministry of Family and Social Policies, also, provided free transport, coordination, scholarships, and financial support to instructors, support with tuition fees and conditional cash transfers, funded by European Union. Currently, 613 thousand students under temporary protection are schooled, including 353 thousand in public schools.
Today the school attendance rate is 65%; this is a very important achievement. However the differences in interregional and inter classroom school attendance is a potential problem area. The chart below shows the change in asylum-seeker schooling rates at different grade levels, with the major decline especially after the fourth grade. This is due to the fact that students drop out of school due to early adulthood (such as child labour, marriage, doing household work), and because children who did not benefit from social inclusion policies and were excluded from schooling, do not join the education system at a later stage. In the latter case, barriers to schooling can be summarized as being down to cultural and language/communicative factors, lack of information and infrastructure as well as economic factors.
“Child labour has become widespread, due to the absence of legal employment. If fathers had good, registered jobs, even at minimum wage, kids wouldn't have to go to work! Then they would go to school, and then go on to college."(Sanliurfa Focus Group Participant No: 7)
According to a Syrian student, a member of the focus group, which was carried out as part of the field study, there are two major problems. On the one hand, children are forced into child labour, in order to elevate the families’ immediate financial needs. This pushes the educational needs of the children into the background, often leading children to quite school to start working. On the other hand there is the problem of assimilation, the difficulty in communicating with their peers and teachers, this in addition to being unaware about their rights to the access of education, is a further obstacles for the schooling of asylum-seeker children. This demonstrates the need for a holistic approach to address the question of education, with a clear policy, to be shared both with host nation’s people and asylum seekers. In other words, these barriers to schooling will remain present unless the meaning of integration and how it should be supported are defined to include the importance of the welfare of the families. Fort this there needs to be a formal registration to facilitate the access to the employment markets, the control of child labour through increased inspections and the facilitation of schooling. Students need to be able to find qualified jobs when they graduate. In addition to schooling, school attendance and quality of education should also be taken into account. Why do asylum seekers not attend school? How can you monitor their performances? How do they communicate with students from the host country? Are these students receiving sufficient guidance and assistance, taking into consideration their traumatic experiences?
When will disabled asylum seekers get similar rights? Does the education they receive at school reflect the multicultural characteristics of the migrant community and respect their identity and culture? The most important factor in maintaining high school attendance rates at this stage is the improvement of the educational conditions in line with these questions. This is particularly visible in areas where local student are competing to get a share of the scarce resources, because of the increasing numbers of children in the classes. Teacher working at schools where there are high numbers of migrants, often complain about the lack of internal training and further education offered on how to deal with migrants. Furthermore, issues such as increased peer bullying and discrimination point to a lack of communication channels between students from the host country and asylum seeker students and also a lack of constructive policies and practice needed for social harmonisation.
Studies conducted by myself and many social psychologists demonstrate that positive intercultural interaction at a young age facilitates lasting cross-cultural harmonisation. In this context, social cohesion should be prioritized and social activities should be supported to promote intercultural communication. The contact with local and foreign NGOs open to activity in this direction should be strengthened and their activities should be facilitated. Finally, we need to reiterate that education is the easiest harmonisation policy to be legitimized and accepted in the public eye. This opportunity should be used and more transparent communication should be adopted in the field of public diplomacy. Hate speech against asylum seekers is growing by the day. The traditional and social media are exaggerating the services that the asylum seekers receive from the Turkish Government.
“Whenever the president of the Republic of Turkey says that Syrians will get citizenship, our Turkish friends stop talking to us, playing with us in matches, and they say that's not fair at all. They should inform the public better in regards to our issues, there should not be room for misunderstandings, it should be eliminated. Moreover, we are not asked, and for most of us a residence permit and work permit would be sufficient. Because of this we are exposed to these discriminatory reactions.” (Şanlıurfa, Focus Group Participant No: 5)
As can be seen from the above asylum-seeker students’ comments and our field studies, these rumours reflected the experiences that individual asylum-seekers have with local people. This creates a rift between the young local people and migrants that are at an education age.
In this context, it is of utmost importance that the services for asylum seekers are clearly justified and explained to the public, in particular in the field of education.
