Education of Internally Displaced People (IDPS) and Refugees: The Need for the Development of a National Relief Education Pedagogy in Cameroon

Greener Journal of Education and Training Studies

Vol. 6(1), pp. 1-13, 2020

ISSN: 2276-7789

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Education of Internally Displaced People (IDPS) and Refugees: The Need for the Development of a National Relief Education Pedagogy in Cameroon

Brenda Nachuah Lawyer (PhD)

Faculty of Letters and Social Sciences, University of Douala, Douala Cameroon.

ARTICLE INFO	ABSTRACT
*Article No.:* 0531200776 *Type: Research*	Whether local, national, or international in scope, times of crisis can have a significant impact on the college classroom. The students need not be directly related or personally involved to experience anxiety or trauma. Over 17 million children were estimated to be living in internal displacement and refugees as a result of conflict and violence at the end of 2018, among them more than 6.2 million girls and 6.4 million boys of primary or secondary school age. In many countries affected by conflict such as Cameroon, internal displacement and refugees places huge strains on the already inadequate education facilities and many displaced children miss out on their schooling. Internally displaced children face significant challenges in exercising their right to education, from infrastructure, capacity and resource constraints to persistent insecurity, social tensions and discrimination. This creates a foundation for the conscription of young school dropouts and inhibits efforts towards sustainable peace. Therefore, an urgent need for more proactive steps by education authorities to develop national pedagogic plans for relief or emergency education is required. In Cameroon, the recent escalation of the sociopolitical crisis in the North West and South West Regions, the Boko Haram conflict in the Far North Region and the spill over of the conflict in the Central African Republic in the East Region of the country, have created a state of emergency in the education of young children which exposes the pedagogic weakness of state educational authorities towards the effective provision of relief education to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and Refugees. It would appear the state has often been largely missing in action, as mostly humanitarian organizations have been seen active in such educational intervention roles. This paper therefore examines government's current pedagogic approach towards providing emergency education for IDPs and Refugees and the need for a sustainable national pedagogic plan for relief/emergency education interventions in the country.
*Accepted:* 01/06/2020 *Published: 28/07/2020*
Corresponding Author Brenda Nachuah Lawyer* *E-mail: bdiangha@ gmail. com*
*Keywords: Relief Education; IDPs; Refugees and Relief Education Pedagogy*

INTRODUCTION

The predicaments that lead to displacement are generally complex. They result from a range of factors, including political instability, conflict, violence, inequality, and poverty, and are often exacerbated by natural disasters, health emergencies, and environmental instability (FAO 2016). Many such emergencies are protracted: long-term, and characterised by recurrent conflict and/or natural disaster, weak governance capacity, chronic food crises, etc. (FAO 2016). Crawford et al. (2015) define ‘protracted displacement’ broadly as “a situation in which refugees and/or IDPs have been in exile for three years or more, and where the process for finding durable solutions, such as repatriation, absorption in host communities or settlement in third locations, has stalled”; they note that it can be difficult to determine a cut-off date for when displacement can be considered protracted, resulting in some disagreements between international agencies and scholars.

An essential tenet underlying the guiding principles on Internal Displacement is that the state obligation to protect and assist the internally displaced is based on existing international law, including settled rules of international human rights law and, in situations of armed conflict such as the current “Anglophone crisis” in Cameroon, international humanitarian law. Human rights law sets out basic standards of protection and each state owes to all citizens and persons living under its jurisdiction. These obligations go beyond the protection of life and physical security to encompass well-established and interrelated categories of civil, educational, political, economic, social, and cultural rights. State authorities are required to respect these rights by not interfering with their exercise; to protect them by preventing foreseeable violations by private parties; and to fulfill them through positive measures facilitating their exercise. In cases in which states fail to meet these obligations, they are required to provide effective remedies that serve to rehabilitate those adversely affected, guarantee that such violations will not recur, and hold accountable those responsible.

Internal displacement is a growing phenomenon particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, the result of wars; instability, human rights violations, disasters and climate change constitute the main trend of events. According to Global Report on Internal Displacement (2019), more than 41 million people were internally displaced as a result of conflict and violence as of the end of 2018. Disasters such as storms, floods and earthquakes triggered more than 17 million new displacements during the year, with China and the Philippines each accounting for 3.8 million. Over 17 million children were estimated to be living in internal displacement as a result of conflict and violence as of the end of 2018, among them more than 6.2 million girls and 6.4 million boys of primary or secondary school age. Millions more were thought to be displaced by disasters.

In many countries affected by conflict such as Cameroon, internal displacement places huge strains on already inadequate education infrastructure and many displaced children miss out on their schooling. For example, Global Report on Internal Displacement (2019) indicates that In Iraq, only 32 per cent of internally displaced children and adolescents had access to some form of education in 2015. In Yemen, only one third of internally displaced school-age children in Lahj governorate were enrolled in school in 2014. Much of the displacement associated with disasters takes place in the form of pre-emptive evacuations that last a matter of days, but events that cause significant damage and destruction may trigger displacement that lasts for years while communities and infrastructure are rebuilt, disrupting education in process. The potential for disruption is also high in areas prone to repeated or cyclical disasters. In Bangladesh, disasters such as storms and floods damage about 900 schools each year. When sea-level rise or other slow-onset climate change impacts force families from their homes, their displacement may be permanent, and such phenomena are expected to become one of the main drivers of displacement in the coming decades. The World Bank estimates that 140 million people will be internally displaced by slow-onset climate change impacts by 2050.

Since 2017, violent clashes in Cameroon between the military and armed separatists have driven thousands of Cameroonians into internal displacement and over the border into Nigeria. The displaced, most of whom are women and children, face a grave humanitarian situation in both countries. Having fled with very little, their presence in impoverished host communities is straining food resources and already limited health, education and washes facilities in these areas. As of October 2018, OCHA estimated there were 437,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in Cameroon, 246,000 of them in the Southwest Region, 105,000 in the Northwest Region, and 86,000 in the Littoral and West Regions. In addition to triggering internal displacement in the Northwest and Southwest Regions of Cameroon, the ongoing conflict has also forced over 35,000 Cameroonians to seek asylum in Nigeria. As the conflict persists in Cameroon, UNHCR anticipates that the influx into Southeast Nigeria will continue, with 20,000 refugees projected to flee in the coming months. This would result in an increase in the overall number of Cameroonian refugees to more than 50,000 by the end of 2019.

The different humanitarian crises in Cameroon, in particular the repeated and violent attacks by armed separatist in the North west and South west regions and Boko Haram in the Northern regions, have exerted a harsh price on the provision of education for the country’s youths (aged 5-18 years), as well as those who were forced to flee their homes and cross the border. Today, only one in five refugees or internally-displaced children has access to education. In the Far North, no less than 144 schools have been closed, forcing 40,000 pupils to seek education outside of their communities. In 2017, around 450, 000 children of school age (3 to 17 years) will require humanitarian assistance in the East, Adamaoua, North and Far North regions. This paper therefore is a culminated effort to develop national relief education pedagogy in Cameroon

Situating the statement of the problem

Education was recognised as a human right by the global community in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Since then, education researchers and practitioners have advocated for education as a key element of development, citing evidence of the value of quality education as an enabling right or an effective mechanism through which other rights can be accessed. Universal Primary Education (UPE) is now an international priority, enshrined in former and current global agendas, including the Education for All (EFA) movement, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and, most recently, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While rapid and significant progress has been made towards primary enrolment, it has flat-lined at around 90 per cent in low and middle income countries (LMICs) such as Cameroon. The last 10 per cent of primary school-age children are proving very hard to reach. Further, half of the world’s children who have not mastered basic literacy or numeracy are actually in school, which suggests there are major problems with educational quality (UNESCO 2014).

These problems with access and quality disproportionately affect children from mobile populations, including internally displaced persons (IDPs) as a result of conflict or natural disaster, and refugees. Such children are often invisible in national and global data (UNESCO 2010) and largely unaccounted for in development policies, which are implicitly designed for people who are mostly sedentary and/or who have a legal, permanent residential claim to the area in which they live (Danaher et al. 2009).

The ambitious SDG agenda, with its 17 goals, explicitly pledges in its framing documents to ‘leave no one behind’ and to attempt to ‘reach the furthest behind first’ (UN 2015). Within education, this requires a concerted effort to understand the many challenges faced by internally displaced and refugees in accessing education, and to develop innovative, relevant, cost-effective and sustainable strategies and interventions to provide high-quality primary education opportunities for these children. Such efforts are imperative in order to prevent the emergence of so-called ‘lost generations’ or children who miss out on an entire formal school cycle. While efforts to extend educational services to IDPs and refugees have expanded during the EFA period, there remains a paucity of analysis on the effectiveness of past and current programmes and methodologies used to deliver education services to IDPs and refugees in Cameroon. Without an extensive survey of existing and emerging research and detailed analysis, there is a gap in the evidence, which prevents the identification of quality and cost-effective approaches that are worth investment in terms of time, money and human resources, and that can be modified and/or scaled up to meet specific demands from IDPs and refugees in Cameroon.

Understanding Cameroon as A Triple Humanitarian Crisis context

Cameroon today suffers from a complex and unprecedented triple humanitarian crisis. Firstly, violence perpetrated by Boko Haram in North-Eastern Nigeria, as well as cross-border raids and suicide bombing attacks in Cameroon, have resulted in the mass influx of Nigerian refugees, as well as the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Cameroonians who have been forced to flee their homes. Secondly, the ongoing crisis in the Central African Republic had at the outset prompted an influx of refugees seeking protection and assistance in the East, Adamaoua and North regions of Cameroon. Thirdly, In the South-West and North-West regions, the escalation of fighting between non-state armed groups and defense and security forces has also led to major destructions of villages, infrastructure and instilled a climate of insecurity with negative impact on the civilian population and the enjoyment of all of the human rights. As a result, about 350, 0002 people are estimated displaced across the South-West and North-West regions of Cameroon, living mostly in surrounding forests and villages in search of safer areas. Others are living in host communities scattered in other parts of the country including urban areas. An additional 26, 8913 have been forced to flee into neighbouring Nigeria. These populations are in dire need of humanitarian assistance and protection. Their deteriorating living conditions, including inability for children to attend schools, difficulties to access food, water, health and other basic needs and services coupled with reports of gender-based violence faced by women IDPs, and other abuses and human rights violations require robust action to address their situation.

In 2016, the UN facilitated access to educational establishments for 53,174 refugee children, including 23,790 from the Central African Republic, 14,384 from Nigeria and 15,000 internally displaced Cameroonians. In addition, 96,675 children (of whom 54, 852 were girls) benefited from learning materials distributed by the UN across 327 schools, while 40 teachers working in temporary learning and protection spaces for children in the refugee camps of the East and Adamawa regions received further training. In the East region, 70 young pairs of educators and counselors received training within secondary teaching establishments with the help of UN agencies. A programme entitled ‘Children of Peace’ targeting refugees, IDPs and children from the host communities in the Far North region was also launched.

This programme aims at improving security, training teachers on psycho-social support (PSS) and providing children who have experienced violence with access to a range of services, from counseling to re-integration assistance. An estimated total of 400 teachers so far have been trained in the provision of PSS services and conflict and disaster risk reduction (C/DRR) strategies. In the East and Center regions, the UN trained 70 coaches and teachers and 405 peer educators in Comprehensive Sexuality Education which in turn benefited 18,240 adolescents and young people. 14 multifunctional centers for youth promotion in the same regions integrated comprehensive sexuality education into trade skills programming, thereby preparing youth simultaneously for responsible parenthood and economic independence.

1n 2019, the UN, together with ECHO, and the Ministry of Education, joined hands in training hundreds of teachers and supervisors in child-centered pedagogy and supportive supervision and monitoring in the Minawao refugee camp in the Far North region. While some of the teachers are Cameroonians, others are themselves refugees from Nigeria or internally displaced Cameroonians who fled their homes to escape the Boko Haram insurgency. One of them, Aïcha, was the head teacher of a nursery school in Nigeria, where she taught for nine years. “Boko Haram entered our area. They killed many people. We heard there was peace in Cameroon. So I told my husband: ‘let’s just run from this area’. As part of their training, the teachers are taught how to deal with children who had undergone severe trauma and who may be experiencing difficulties in school as a result. “The challenge is to show these teachers that they are not like other teachers who are in yaounde, Douala, Garoua or Maroua,” says Ousmanou Adamou Garga, from the Regional Delegation for Basic Education

“These teachers need specific skills. They need to adapt their teaching methods, because they have in front of them children who have particular needs. They need to have specific skills to allow all the children in the camp to be in school. Because the place for children is not in the market or in the refugee camp but at school.” In the town of Maroua, Martin, a Cameroonian IDP who had himself fled the violence, says that sensitivity is of the utmost importance when dealing with children who had experienced displacement and violence. In training, “we were taught how to welcome these children, who are chased out by Boko Haram. We should not rush them: when they arrive, they feel unhappy. We must do everything to put them in a state of mind in which they won’t think about what they have experienced.” As part of the ‘Children of Peace’ project, the UN is supporting the Ministry of Basic Education in Cameroon to provide a safe learning environment and quality education to more than 31,000 children.

Trajectories and duration of forced displacement

Most displacement crises last for years, if not decades. According to recent studies, once displaced for six months, refugees are highly likely to end up in a state of protracted displacement. Over the past decade, two fifths of all refugees were displaced for three or more years at any one time (Crawford et al. 2015). Further, in two thirds of all countries monitored for conflict-induced displacement in 2014, at least half of all internally displaced persons (IDPs) had been displaced for over three years. It is often assumed that forced displacement due to disasters will be short term; however, although the data is limited, IDMC evidence suggests that disasters can also lead to protracted displacement, such as in Haiti,4 where conflict and disasters overlap (Hyndman 2011).

Most forcibly displaced people in protracted exile are unlikely to see what is known as a ‘durable’ solution to their displacement (i.e. returning ‘home’, integrating into the place of exile, or resettling elsewhere) (Crawford et al. 2015). It is often difficult for refugees to return to their country of origin;5 only small numbers of refugees are successful in integrating in the countries that do accept refugees (McCarthy and Vickers 2012), and only 1% of refugees globally are resettled to a third country (UNHCR 2014b). Many refugees and IDPs have experienced multiple displacements, such as the IDPs in Kivu provinces in DRC (IDMC 2015a), and Palestinian refugees living in Syria who have been further displaced by the conflict there.

Education and forced displacement

Forced displacement inevitably leads to a temporary or permanent halt in a child’s school career. Education opportunities in situations of displacement are often very limited, and refugees and IDPs face numerous additional barriers to accessing education (see Sects. 3 and 4). In general, forcibly displaced persons are less likely to access education than their non-migrant peers (Dryden-Peterson 2011). However, forced displacement does not universally lead to a reduction in access to education; where families are forced to flee from areas with very few schools to urban areas or organised camps with more schools, displacement can in fact increase access to education (Ferris and Winthrop 2010).

Research suggests that non-formal and formal education opportunities of a reasonably high standard can provide a certain level of psychosocial protection and support for forcibly displaced peoples, as regular education activities can help to restore a sense of stability and hope among affected populations (Dryden-Peterson 2015, Shah 2015a). High-quality education that emphasises learning and pays particular attention to the varied needs of forcibly displaced peoples has the potential for societal benefits, including community cohesion, in addition to individual benefits (Dryden-Peterson 2015, McCorriston 2012). The EiE community of practice emphasises that education has lifesaving (short-term) and life-sustaining (longer-term) aims (INEE 2016). However, research also indicates that the education generally available for forcibly displaced persons is of such low quality that it commonly fails to exercise this protective dimension (Dryden-Peterson 2011).

As a result of displacement, IDPs lose access to educational facilities and services. Schools and training facilities in places of origin are no longer safely accessible and may be destroyed, while teachers and administrators are often dispersed. Arranging for education where IDPs find themselves displaced is often complicated. If IDPs are located in camps or grouped shelter that is remote or inaccessible to local population centers, then primary education facilities (at least) must be built up from scratch within the camp, an undertaking which is often complicated by lack of resources and expertise. On the other hand, where IDPs do enjoy access to local school systems, a number of other problems typically arise:

§ IDPs may suffer from discrimination because they do not belong to the local ethnic, linguistic or religious majority group, or may simply not understand the local language of instruction.

§ IDPs may have no other shelter options than collective centers normally used by the local community as schools, presenting an obstacle to education for both displaced and non-displaced children.

§ Where local schools are available, the arrival of large groups of displaced children can lead to overcrowded classrooms, straining the relationship with host communities.

§ Where local schools are located at a distance from IDP settlements, traveling to school may be dangerous where the route goes via mined areas or security checkpoints where children may be subject to harassment, forced recruitment, or abduction.

§ IDPs often lack personal documentation; lack of identification or records attesting to prior enrollment or the level of studies that displaced children have completed can prevent them from registering locally for education; such bureaucratic obstacles can also prevent displaced teachers without access to proof of their qualifications from providing badly needed instruction.

§ In some cases, local residency requirements and other bureaucratic requirements can prevent enrollment of IDPs in local educational facilities.

§ School fees, other costs such as books and uniforms, or in some cases the need to pay bribes to teachers and administrators can render education unaffordable for IDPs, in light of the impoverishment risk that typically accompanies displacement.

§ Displaced children may find themselves either required to abandon school in order to contribute to their family’s economic survival, or to work so hard outside of school hours that their education suffers.

§ Displacement is often accompanied by physical or psychological trauma in cases when children have been recruited as child soldiers, witnessed atrocities, or been separated from family members. Under such circumstances, displaced children’s ability to learn may be limited in the absence of psycho-social care.

The educational trajectories experienced by displaced people are generally interrupted, diverted, and/or stalled (Dryden-Peterson 2015). Education is often planned as a temporary stop-gap measure in camps or urban settlements; yet the reality is that many individuals will remain displaced for a period equivalent to a complete schooling cycle. The likelihood that forcibly displaced peoples are able to develop key literacy, numeracy, socio-emotional, and vocational skills in makeshift learning environments is low. Individuals who do return ‘home’, or resettle in a new place, are often not prepared to (re)integrate into the formal schooling system, or do not have relevant or recognised education credentials, or face barriers to school participation, including the language of the curriculum, discrimination, past trauma, bullying, and exclusion (Dryden-Peterson 2015).

Table 1 compares refugees and IDPs according to global numbers, legal frameworks and bodies involved with the monitoring and provision of education. While there is a strong international legal framework for the protection of refugees’ right to education, and two UN bodies mandated to ensure that these rights are upheld, there is no equivalent legally binding agreement or set of UN structures dedicated to upholding the rights of IDPs.

In order to ensure that IDPs can exercise their right to education during and after displacement, domestic laws and policies should:

§ Guarantee IDP children free and compulsory primary education and non-discriminatory access to secondary education. Where free primary education has not yet been introduced, education should be provided on at least as favorable a basis as it would be for poor members of the host community.

§ Anchor the right of IDPs to education during displacement in the general legal framework for education as well as IDP laws and policies;

§ Integrate education issues into a coordinated response to internal displacement;

§ Encourage IDPs to participate in the design of education services and facilities;

§ Build on the understanding of IDPs’ pre-displacement literacy rates and educational practices;

§ Permit IDPs, whenever possible, to enroll in local educational facilities in the communities where they are displaced;

§ provide IDPs with dedicated educational facilities without delay in cases where local enrollment is not possible;

§ Provide IDPs with separate instruction in their own language if they do not understand the local language of education and if there is an immediate prospect that they may be able to return. Otherwise, the possibility of local integration should be facilitated through the availability of instruction in the local language.

§ Waive formal documentation and local registration requirements that constitute an obstacle to the education of internally displaced children or to the recognition and recruitment of internally displaced teachers;

§ Waive or subsidize fees and costs for equipment for IDPs on the basis of need on at least as favorable a basis as they would be for poor members of the host community;

§ Take all necessary measures to ensure equal access to education for disadvantaged groups, and particularly for women and girls as well as former child soldiers;

§ Adapt school curricula for IDPs to provide information relevant to both their safety security while displaced and their long-term reintegration;

§ Include into school curricula the teaching of the principles of international human rights and humanitarian law with a view to familiarize young people with the notion of human dignity as an inviolable quality that must be respected, both in times of peace and in times of armed conflict;

§ Take into account the effect of psychological trauma and interrupted education experienced in the course of displacement in the ways in which IDPs are placed in classes and evaluated; where necessary, provide “bridging programs” to allow displaced children to catch up with their peers;

§ Recruit qualified teachers from among the IDP community, and encourage women to become educators along with men;

§ In the context of durable solutions, integrate IDPs into local school systems wherever they choose to reside, guarantee access to education in all situations, and take steps to prevent discrimination in relation to surrounding, non-displaced communities.

Quality of Refugee Education And Learning Outcomes

The issue of education quality has increasingly become a global priority. While access significantly improved between 1990 and 2015, many students who had been in school for four to five years had still not acquired basic literacy (UNESCO 2015). Subsequently, the international community has adopted a goal to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” as SDG 4 in the sustainable development agenda (UN 2016).

Increase in education access for refugees often comes at the cost of quality (Dryden-Peterson 2011). This is particularly evident where there is a choice between educating refugees in camp schools versus national mainstream schools: refugee camp schools may have spaces available, but they often lack a qualified teaching force; national schools, on the other hand, present access challenges associated with high costs and non-mother-tongue instruction leading to grade repetition (Dryden- Peterson 2003). Such is the importance of quality that UNHCR focused on learning in its latest Education Strategy 2012-2016.

Education quality can be considered across three key interrelated dimensions of education: (1) curriculum (what is taught), (2) pedagogy (how it is taught), and (3) assessment (how teaching and learning is measured) (Wyse, Hayward and Pandya 2015). These dimensions are discussed below in more detail, in relation to refugee education.

Curriculum Issues

A key question concerns whether refugees should follow the curriculum of the host country or their country of origin. On the one hand, voluntarily returning to the country of origin is generally considered to be the preferred durable solution (as set out by the UNHCR), which would suggest that the country of origin curriculum should be taught. On the other hand, the reality is that the average time refugees spend in displacement is longer than a completed cycle of schooling (primary and secondary), which would suggest that it is better to teach the host country curriculum. At the heart of this curriculum paradox is a complex problem: how to ensure that what refugees learn is meaningful, and linked to officially recognised forms of accreditation and certification. A recent trend has been towards integration/mainstreaming into stable national systems (and consequently use of the host country curriculum), as the education is perceived to be of higher quality there than in camp schools. Further, an increasing number of educators and organisations are attempting to “enrich” the curriculum, by bringing in elements from the country of origin curricula to teach alongside host country curricula (and vice versa), and including supplementary curricula on human rights, life skills, conflict resolution, peace building, etc. (INEE 2010).

Curriculum is a contested term in educational research. Some define it narrowly, as the plan or syllabus followed by teachers for a given course of study; others define it broadly, as everything that is learned in an educational context, be it intentional or unintentional, explicit or implicit (Moore 2014). Questions around selection of content can be politically charged, and have important implications for what refugees learned. For example, if no mother tongue curriculum materials are available, young refugee learners find it difficult to learn basic literacy and numeracy, and also come to believe that their language is not as valued as the language of instruction. In other words, alongside academic knowledge and skills, the curriculum also transmits to children lessons about social structures and power relations (Dryden-Peterson 2015, p. 12). For this reason, the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) Guidance Notes on Teaching and Learning and additional materials on conflict-sensitive education highlight the importance of “context-specific curriculum choices” (INEE 2010, p. 1).

Dryden-Peterson (2015) traces the educational histories of learners from the DRC in Uganda and Burundi, Somali refugees in Kenya, Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and Malaysia, and Syrian refugees in Egypt before their resettlement to the United States. One major barrier faced by many refugees is curriculum language and language learning. There was rarely a single language within a class of refugees, meaning that instructional content had/has to be translated multiple times, impeding educational progress. As an added complication, both the UNHCR’s and host countries’ policies on whether to teach children in host country or origin country language have changed over time. At the local level, this has meant that many students are exposed to different languages but are not supported to attain mastery of any of them. In some situations, language is not as much of a problem, for example for Congolese and CAR refugees in Cameroon, and Somali refugees in the Somali region of Ethiopia. Another example is described by UNHCR Chad (2015) which carried out a participatory assessment among Sudanese refugees in 12 camps in 2012 on transitioning to the Chadian system, and as a result worked with the Government of Chad to adopt the bilingual national curriculum (French and Arabic) for use with Sudanese refugees, without compromising the language of instruction the refugees were used to, and to train teachers. Finally, it is worth recalling that barriers to language acquisition vary from individual to individual, depending on age, academic level, opportunities for practice, etc.

Pedagogy Issues

Regardless of the quality of the curriculum, if teachers lack the pedagogical capacity to implement that curriculum, the quality of the learning experience will suffer.

Dryden-Peterson (2015) found that national resources for teaching are limited, as reflected in high student–teacher ratios and low-level teaching qualifications. This means that national systems are often below current UNHCR standards. However, these trends vary strongly according to context; for example, student–teacher ratios ranged from 18:1 in Ghana to 70:1 in Pakistan according to 2009 data (Dryden-Peterson 2015), while the proportion of trained teachers ranged from 0% in Djibouti to 100% in Eritrea (ibid.). According to the Commonwealth Secretariat (2013), in Kenya, Cameroon, South Africa, South Sudan, and Uganda, teachers of refugees were under-qualified and did not have sufficient experience. While there has been a global rise in the percentage of professionally qualified teachers overall, according to UNHCR data this trend is uneven for teachers of refugees, with some areas showing no or little progress. Research shows that teachers of refugees commonly find it difficult to implement instruction and to build inclusive classroom environments, and end up using teacher-centered rather than learner-centered methodologies; quality pedagogy is constrained by factors including limited resources (low funding, overcrowding, and lack of educational materials), a lack of pedagogical training and content knowledge, and curriculum and language policies (Mendenhall et al. 2015).

Assessment Issues

In addition to problems of weakness in ongoing informal assessment (i.e. assessment carried out by the teacher day-to-day to ensure learning is taking place), refugees particularly in Cameroon Camps face a number of challenges concerning assessment. These include a lack of access to formal assessment opportunities such as national examinations, a lack of recognition of certain credentials and qualifications, and no recognition of prior learning (Kirk 2009). Refugees themselves priorities the need for official recognition of their qualifications (Dippo 2016). A recent study of refugees in Thailand shows that while the education provided through refugee camps in Thailand was perceived to be higher quality than in Myanmar, it was only seen to hold currency within the refugee context, and the education was not accredited (Oh 2012).

Current Gaps and Challenges

Review of the state of research, policy, and practice in refugee and IDP education has uncovered a number of gaps and challenges which include but not limited to: .

a) There is a gap in the research when it comes to understanding and responding to the protracted nature of refugee crises and to the individual and community educational trajectories and experiences of refugees. Robust longitudinal data on these trajectories and experiences are lacking. On a related note, there is a need for a strengthening of pathways for research to inform policy and practice by building partnerships and improving coordination between researchers, governments, IPs (Implementing Partners), NGOs, and affected communities.

b) There is a gap in the evidence about increasing access to and beyond primary school and addressing lack of space. Since mainstreaming of refugees into national education systems has become a preferred option among key stakeholders, there is an urgent need for relevant and meaningful curriculum and assessment systems and a better understanding of how to meet specific learning needs, including those to do with language of instruction and assessment, disabilities, gender, and ethnicity.

c) Since education is thought to lose its protective dimension if it is of low quality, more research is required on how best to build teacher capacity, support teacher wellbeing, and facilitate compensation for teachers of refugees. The quality of United Nations Relief and Works Agency schools relative to other schools in the region has been attributed in part to United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA’ teacher training programmes and ongoing support mechanisms. However, standards in these schools are falling, thus there is an urgent need to determine how to recover and maintain the previous standards and how to transfer lessons learned from the Cameroon context to DRC or CAR contexts.

d) Since an increasing number of refugees go to urban settlements rather than camps, there is a need for more effective data collection with these urban populations, who are often not documented and/or are dispersed across contexts rather than grouped together in a camp setting.

e) Despite progress made by the Cameroon government and her partners, education provision for IDPs and refugees remains impeded by the perception of a humanitarian/development divide within the international donor community. The international donor community needs to develop medium- to long-term flexible funding and implementation mechanisms to support IDP education in situations of protracted displacement.

f) Improved national-level planning and longer-term, more flexible funding from the international community is needed in order to improve teacher recruitment and compensation strategies in IDP situations, including consideration of strategies to attract and retain qualified teachers (especially female teachers).

g) Provision of post-primary education and training opportunities for adolescent and youth IDPs remains a major gap, requiring increased support from national and international actors, and exploration of innovative means of providing cost-effective access to education for this group.

h) Finally, given the increasingly protracted nature of refugee crises, more sophisticated funding mechanisms are required to respond to more immediate short-term educational needs and longer- term educational needs.

Development of a National Relief Education Pedagogy in Cameroon: Opportunities, Innovations, and Best Practice in Education for IDPs and Refugees

The range of approaches described in this paper, summarized here in table 2, represents a menu of potentially productive strategies, rather than a definitive list of “what works”.

Table 2: Potentially productive strategies

Issue addressed

Strategies and interventions

Supporting impacted communities

· Support to education interventions initiated by displaced people themselves

· Cash transfers

Ensuring protection, psychosocial support, and safe spaces, and building resilience

· Training teachers and parents to cope with traumatized children, alongside self-regulation exercises for children

· After-school programmes providing academic support, problem-solving skills and nurturing positive peer relationships.

· Using schools as a site for delivering mental health interventions

Addressing disruptions in learning

· Accelerated learning programmes (ALPs) support overage children to catch up on missed learning time.

· The Youth Education Pack, which provides training in literacy and numeracy, livelihood skills training and life-skills for youth aged 15-24, who have missed out on schooling should be promoted

Addressing problems of space

· Using mobile money transfers to pay teachers

· Using mobiles for real-time school data collection

· Using radio to deliver lesson content

· Using mobile phones and tablets to enable interactive learning

· Mobile schools (e.g. schools in a boat or bus)

Building teaching capacity and wellbeing

· The Teacher Emergency Package: a package of self-study materials, on- going training and school materials

· Deploying female teaching assistants to support girls

· Interagency collaboration in the sharing and development of new teacher training and management resources

Improving higher education

· Learning hubs in refugee camps, offering blended higher education courses including humanitarian interpreter training

· Borderless Higher Education for Refugees (BHER) which provides

modular certificated courses that build incrementally to a degree

Strengthening capacity for accreditation and certification

· Cross-border and regional examinations

· Accreditation of distance-learning by universities in the country of origin

· Development of recognition agreements between governments

· Use of placement tests to enable students lacking documentation to enroll in the most appropriate grade

· Working with governments to enable IDPs to sit examinations (e.g.

logistical support, changing examination dates to accommodate IDPs)

Improving data and monitoring

· Use of GPS technology to access school data in remote areas

· Satellite and drone imagery to identify IDP settlements and shelters in hard-to-access areas

	Refugees	IDPs
Causes of displacement (according to UN definition)	Persecution	Armed conflict, internal strife, systematic violations of human rights, or natural or man- made disasters
Place of refuge	Outside their own country	Within their own country
Global numbers (2015)	21.3 million refugees 3.2 million asylum seekers	40.8 million Displaced by conflict, persecution, generalised violence, or human rights violations (including 8.6 million newly displaced in 2015). This figure does not include those displaced by natural disasters.
Bodies responsible for ensuring the right to education	UNHCR, host governments,	National governments UNICEF for returnees (UNHCR 1997)
Global legal frameworks and conventions	1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees	1998 UN Guiding Principles on IDPs (not legally binding)
Regional Instruments	1969 OAU convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in Africa 1984 Cartagena Declaration on Refugees	2009 African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (Kampala Convention)⁶
Durable solutions	· voluntary repatriation · integration into the asylum country, · resettlement to a third country	ü return and reintegration in place of origin ü integration in the area of displacement ü integration in another part of the country
Monitoring	UNHCR/UNRWA	Responsibility of national governments, collected by national governments and humanitarian organisations (e.g. UNICEF), collated by IDMC
Implementing bodies	UNHCR, host governments, UNICEF, INGOs, NGOs, FBOs, UNRWA	National governments, FBOs, UNICEF, UNHCR, INGOs
Coordinating bodies	UNHCR UNRWA	Cluster (global and national), UN OCHA

E-mail: bdiangha@ gmail. com