7 CHALLENGES YOUNG REFUGEES & ASYLUM SEEKERS FACE IN EDUCATION

This blog post is created as a contribution to Refugee Week and aims to shed light on how Iqbal Syed, a trustee at Success4All supports young refugees and asylum seekers to overcome barriers to education

For many families who arrive in Newcastle seeking sanctuary, one of the very first people they will often be welcomed by is Iqbal Syed, family support officer at Newcastle City Council and trustee of Success4All.

Helping refugees and asylum seekers settle in Newcastle has been Mr Syed’s mission for over two decades.

“To provide them with support gives me a lot of satisfaction,” says Mr Syed.

Before his role with the local authority, Mr Syed spent much of his time teaching in Pakistan and later in Australia, where he was awarded a PhD from The Australia National University in Canberra in the history of South Asia.

Having been involved in education for much of his life, Mr Syed is passionate about ensuring children and young people have access to quality education. So, when the role of education welfare officer at Newcastle City Council became available in 1998, Mr Syed was keen to take it on.

As the successful candidate for the role, Mr Syed has since been involved in working directly with and supporting refugee and asylum-seeking families all across Newcastle upon Tyne.

Initially, Mr Syed worked alongside other welfare officers in the Council, but following the dispersal scheme in 1999, he was given the responsibility to oversee all the families who were being settled in the West End of Newcastle.

Later, in 2010 and up until today, he is responsible for overseeing all the families who are being settled in Newcastle by the Home Office.

In this post, we highlight seven of the barriers and challenges children and young people face in educational settings as per Mr Syed’s experience.

1. Securing a Place

When a family first arrives in the city, Mr Syed is the first person to contact them.

Once contact has been made, he then arranges a visit to the family where he can offer them support, guidance and arrange a school or college admission. On a case-by-case basis, Mr Syed would also support with university admissions.

“As we know, asylum seekers and refugees are not automatically given a place in university and I do advise them, give them support, signpost them on how to get access to scholarships.”

Asylum seekers are not eligible to receive student finance and instead rely on sanctuary scholarships and an onerous enrollment process.

Mr Syed has to ensure that children are enrolled in school within the stipulated 28 days. During his early days in the role, this was exceptionally difficult as there were more asylum seeker children arriving in Newcastle then than there are today. For young people, it can take up to several weeks before they are allocated a space in an educational setting. In due course, young people miss out on essential learning and are left isolated.

However, securing a school/college admission is just one of many barriers children and young people face.

2. Trauma

Most of the challenges children and young people face occur once they are enrolled into school or college. This is particularly the case for young people who are still dealing with trauma and adjusting to life in a different country. This does not mean that children are healed from their traumatic experiences or have adjusted to life in Newcastle.

” I came across families, who esepcially from Sri Lanka, who see their father being killed in front of them, and even other countries.”

3. Cultural Differences

Mr Syed observed that language barriers and cultural differences often resulted in the young people being bullied and harassed. Unfortunately, these incidents sometimes occurred outside of the school environment as well.

To resolve the issues, Mr Syed would often be involved in liaising between the parents and the school. His Muslim faith, multilingualism & experience are shared commonalities between Mr Syed and many of the families he supports which Mr Syed credits as having helped a lot in his role, especially when trying to resolve some of their issues.

4. Language Barrier

As mentioned above, the language barrier is a significant challenge as it prevents young people from being able to communicate, build friendships, participate in activities and much more. During the earlier years when funding was available, an EAL (English as Additional Language) unit at a local academy provided young people with an opportunity to access additional English lessons and support. There, they were able to fast-track their learning. Once funding had been exhausted, the unit came to a close. Mr Syed says a smaller unit has since been created elsewhere but is not proving to be as effective as the previous unit. Without the language, young people’s chances of succeeding academically are hindered.

5. Learning Materials & Resources

Year by year, many other cuts were forced to be made as funding was slashed.

“There were so many things which we used to do but with time funding disappeared and we have not been able to provide the same level of support,” explained Mr Syed.

Previously, children received free school uniforms, basic stationery, a dictionary as well as support with trips.

6. SEN

It also became apparent to Mr Syed that it wasn’t just the language barrier, cost of educational materials and poor mental health that young people were struggling with, it was also underlying Special Educational Needs (SEN) that young people were silently struggling with.

“Some children were deaf, some lost eyes and sight, and some were physically not fit,” said Mr Iqbal, especially children who came from war-affected countries like Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

Under the Kaleidoscope project, many children and families have been able to receive the support they previously did not have access to. This includes having designated education welfare and family support services. The team on the project also includes educational psychologists, who upon referral from Mr Syed, assess the children and put together a health care and wellbeing plan, which is later shared with the school.

7. The System

For parents, their children’s education always remained a firm priority, but over time many parents became worried about their children’s academic performance, particularly those who came from affluent backgrounds and whose children were accustomed to receiving a higher level of education than what they were receiving. Not knowing the UK education system hindered the parents’ ability to support and advocate for their children’s education. It was Mr Syed who they turned to for support and reassurance.

Success4All’s Role

Luckily, Mr Syed came to know of Success4All since our very inception in 2006 and has ever since been signposting families with children & young people to our services, trusting that they will receive the utmost care and support, particularly when it came to their education and forming new friendships.

Most recently, Mr Syed has equipped over 20 families with a laptop through Success4All’s laptop donation scheme and over the years has supported & advocated for hundreds of children and young people across the city.

Whilst children and young people still experience barriers and challenges, the overall work being done by Mr Iqbal, Newcastle City of Sanctuary & other local organisations who are working tirelessly to make refugees and asylum seekers feel more welcomed and supported is noticeable.