COVID-19 poses several challenges for education. Refugees and immigrants are among the groups most deeply affected by these challenges. This makes it even more significant to focus on the voices of these groups. Thus, this chapter examines the changes in schooling experiences of Syrian refugee children living in Altindağ district in Ankara, Turkey with the COVID-19 pandemic. Thematic analysis technique was employed in order to analyze in-depth interviews conducted with the parents of 13 Syrian refugee children at school level in August 2021. Drawing on the collected data, it is argued that the COVID-19 pandemic served as a litmus test to uncover the problems of refugee children related to education. Through the pandemic, the barriers and challenges that refugee children face regarding access to education have enhanced and even raised the risk of disengaging from education and dropping out of school.
Top5.1 Introduction
The world is currently in the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic, affecting all segments of society. As many studies have pointed out, pandemics have more dramatic effects on migrant and refugee populations, deepening existing inequalities, and bringing greater devastation on these communities than on their advantaged counterparts (Kristal & Yaish, 2020; Khunti et al., 2020). Recent studies have shown that “COVID-19 has sharpened the societal inequalities that have long existed” (Bhala et al., 2020, p.1674; Ali et al., 2020), making engagement with immigrant and refugee communities that much more important, so as to gain an understanding of their inclusion/exclusion. And one key space for the reproduction of exclusion is education. The extensive literature on the links between education and social exclusion mainly focuses on how people are deprived of an education, or excluded entirely from the system of education, due to various processes of social exclusion (Whitty, 2001; Sparkes, 1999; Istance, 1997).
Many studies highlight that lower levels of education may lead to higher rates of exclusion for individuals later in life (Sparkes, 1999, p.38). We know that schools are crucial institutions for improving skills, especially for disadvantaged groups (Sparkes, 1999, p.38). And in light of the fact that refugees may face particularly acute forms of exclusion—particularly acute, that is, relative to even other disadvantaged groups—due to low levels of education, it is unsurprising, then, that refugees approach education as a key to generational mobility and to inclusion in host communities (Taylor, 2004). However, in some cases, it may not be possible for refugees to access education, due to any number of barriers. Based on the data collected in Jordan, those barriers are addressed as “inability to pay for school-related costs like transportation, and pressures on children to drop-out to work or marry, as well as the low quality of education” (HRW, 2020, p.47). This causes a huge decrease in enrolment rates of Syrian children aged around 12 and put a barrier to their transition from basic to secondary education (HRW, 2020, p.2).
Inclusive education is thus of critical importance for all children to have equal opportunities to receive an education of equal quality (Istance, 1997; Cook et al., 2001; Maadad, 2020). Education is significant not only for the academic outcomes and social & emotional well-being of children but also future labour market (Cerna, 2019, p.8). However, it is scholarly argued that “integrating displaced children into established host country educational systems” is a complex issue (Brown, 2013, p. xv). It is suggested that the educational opportunities could be possible for refugees with the commitments of all actors i.e. individuals, families, communities, and political authorities (Brown, 2013, p. xix).