Will the war in Ukraine be a pivotal moment for refugee education in Europe?

In just two months following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, over 4.9 million people fled their country in what has become the fastest exodus globally since World War II (UNHCR, 2022a). In numbers alone, this refugee crisis dwarfs the almost 2.5 million refugees, mainly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, who entered Europe in 2015–2016 during the so-called ‘European refugee crisis’ (Eurostat, 2017). Those fleeing the devastation of their homeland join the world’s estimated 84 million forcibly displaced people (UNHCR, 2022b) who leave behind everything to face an ‘unknowable future’ (Dryden-Peterson, 2017). Lives which just a few months earlier had seemed so ordinary and predictable are now held in suspension for an unknown length of time as refugees face the uncertainty of a future which could include an eventual return to their home country or a life in exile in one or more countries. Much of their decision-making will be guided by where they have friends or families, the linguistic, cultural and financial resources they can draw upon and the warmth of the welcome provided by the strangers on whom they now depend.

There are important differences between the refugee crisis emanating from the war in Ukraine and other refugee crises, and consequently, the humanitarian response is different. Firstly, the situation has unfolded in the heart of Europe, and for the first time in more than 70 years, European nations are confronted with the type of crisis which they are more accustomed to witnessing and managing in a more distant Global South.¹ 85% of refugees live in low- and middle-income countries in the Global South, with the majority living in countries neighbouring their country of origin (UNHCR, 2022b). The conflict therefore disrupts the deeply embedded assumption that war, human rights abuses and ensuing tragedies are confined to certain geographies or territories and to certain types of people. It has highlighted that becoming a refugee is not something which only happens to people fleeing poor countries in the Global South.

Secondly, refugees fleeing Ukraine are the archetypal refugees imagined by European nations when, in the wake of the holocaust and large-scale displacement following World War II, they established the Refugee Convention in 1951 (UN, 1951). The Convention reflected western European concerns over an expansionist Soviet Union and the need to prevent another Holocaust and the persecution of individuals (Hyndman, 2000). These concerns are reflected in the Convention’s definition of a refugee as a person who

owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his [sic] nationality (Article 1 A(2). (UN, 1951), p. 48)

Today’s Ukrainian refugees conform to this definition and to the image of the ‘normal refugee’ as ‘white, male and anti-communist – which clashed sharply with individuals fleeing the third world’ (Chimni, 1998, p. 351). The drivers of refugee flows in the Global South are often more complex and include environmental degradation and climate change, economic precarity in fragile states and natural disasters which can rarely be reduced to individualised or even group persecution (Betts, 2013; Zetter, 2019). The fact that many refugees are also from poor countries, often ex-colonies of the Global North, inevitably leads to blurred boundaries between so-called economic and persecution drivers, further amplifying the difficulties that people from non-Western nations face in claiming protection and accessing rights (Mayblin, 2017).² In order to reinforce and protect its borders from migrants and refugees from the Global South, the EU continues to invest in a formidable architecture of deterrence. This has included building more than 1,800 km of walls, strengthening Frontex, the EU-wide border and coast guard agency, violent pushbacks, and the negotiation of third country agreements to contain ‘irregular migration’ (Chandler, 2018; Müller & Slominski, 2021; Sajjad, 2022). Many of the refugees who entered Europe in 2015/2016 are still caught in limbo in camps or urban areas in southern Europe, particularly in Greece and Turkey. Following the Australian model of offshoring asylum processing, the UK government has recently announced plans to deport asylum seekers arriving at its borders to Rwanda where their claims will be assessed and, if successful, they will be settled in Rwanda with no right to return to the UK (Syal, 2022). More than six months after arrival in the UK, some 12,000 Afghans, including families, remain in hotels waiting to be settled into communities where they can start the process of rebuilding their lives and planning their futures (Taylor, 2022).

In stark contrast, geographical, cultural, religious and racial proximity, coupled with conformity to the archetypal refugee in the European imaginary, has made it easier for European countries to empathise and connect to the current crisis. From the outset Ukrainian nationals were granted free movement across EU borders and immediate rights to temporary protection, to work and to study in EU countries. The UK launched the Homes for Ukraine Scheme and the Ukraine Family Scheme which enable an uncapped number of refugees to come to the UK via individual sponsors or via family members in the UK. Both schemes enable refugees to remain in the UK for at least three years and provide access to public services and welfare benefits (Home Office, 2022). The potential scale of these schemes is far bigger than existing resettlement schemes and the UK response to the refugee crises in Syria and Afghanistan combined. Although geographically more distant, settler countries such as Australia, the US and Canada have also responded in ways not previously seen or imagined. For example, Australia has announced three-year temporary visas, access to work, study and healthcare for Ukrainians (Home Affairs, 2022); Canada has introduced a priority immigration stream for Ukrainians, with benefits such as work authorisation (Government of Canada, 2022); and the US has introduced a ‘new streamlined’ humanitarian pathway for Ukrainians who have a financial supporter in the US (Homeland Security, 2022).

The political will demonstrated in support of Ukrainian refugees demonstrates what can be achieved when there is a genuine human-based response and is a potentially pivotal moment in Europe’s response to refugees. Although still in the early days of the crisis, we are seeing a commitment and solidarity-based response when it comes to ensuring access to education. Post-compulsory education is now recognised as critical to refugees and a core component of humanitarian responses (Morrice, 2021; UNHCR, 2019). Education provides long-term purpose during periods of uncertainty and disruption, it supports integration, language acquisition and provides certification and the skills needed to navigate new contexts. Crucially, it provides hope and enables refugees to plan for a future, whether in a country of exile, or for a future return to their country of origin. However, opportunities to access education rest within the purview of individual nation-states, and even in wealthy countries in the Global North, refugees struggle to access the quality education they aspire to (e.g. Morrice et al., 2019; Shakya et al., 2012). The barriers to accessing tertiary education opportunities for refugees are well rehearsed and include unsettled immigration status, non-recognition of qualifications, financial and linguistic barriers (e.g. Earnest et al., 2010; Kanno & Varghese, 2010; Morrice, 2013; Stevenson & Willott, 2007).

In Ukraine, there were approximately 1.67 million students in tertiary education across universities and other types of HE institutions in 2017 (WENR, 2019). Many of these students have been displaced within Ukraine or have fled to neighbouring countries. As Ukraine is a member of the Bologna process, these students should have their qualifications recognised by other universities in the European Higher Education Area. The EU and UK have granted Ukrainian nationals the right to study; initial mapping of government responses reported to UNESCO (2022) that information about what support will be made available to enable them to access HE institutions is still limited. Governments which have so far announced their commitment to financially support Ukrainian students include Austria, which has announced it will waive tuition fees for Ukrainian nationals and will fast-track applications for recognition of Ukrainian qualifications to support rapid integration into education. Austria has also waived tuition fees for Ukrainian students currently enrolled in universities. Finland will cover the expenses of approximately 2,000 Ukrainian university students. HE institutions in Romania are increasing their tuition-free places to support Ukrainian students. Germany has set up a platform to enable HE students and researchers to continue their studies and research. The Scottish Government has announced plans to give free tuition and living cost support (in line with Scottish nationals) to Ukrainian students settling in Scotland (Scottish Government, 2022). The Italian government has established a special fund of 5000 Euros to support Ukrainian students, researchers and university teachers (Ministry of University and Research, 2022).

Prior to the war there were over 76,000 international students living in Ukraine, the highest portion from India (20,000) and from Nigeria, Morocco and Egypt (Ali, 2022). These students had to make the difficult decision to either return to their home country or try to remain in Europe and complete their studies. Many have detailed racism as they fled Ukraine, and some have reported racialised denial of entry into some neighbouring countries (Ali, 2022; Reliefweb, 2022). There have been reports that the generous welcome offered to Ukrainian nationals is not being extended to non-Ukrainian students fleeing the conflict (Ali, 2022). This racial preference and differential treatment are illuminated by the fact that at the time of writing only two European countries, Hungary and France, are identified as offering financial aid to non-Ukrainian students whose studies have been interrupted (UNESCO, 2022).

Notwithstanding the discrimination, this government-level support for refugee education has upended previous expectations of refugee entitlement to higher education. Prior to the current crisis, the issue of refugee access to tertiary education, including higher education, received little policy attention in Europe. A Eurydice Report highlighted the invisibility of refugees and asylum seekers in policy and a fragmented response to their inclusion into HE across Europe. It found that despite the significant increase in numbers of people seeking protection in Europe in 2015–2016 ‘… the majority of countries have no specific policy approach to integrate refugees into higher education’. Only six countries monitored the integration of refugees in their institutions, underlining the very low level of priority given to this group (EuropeanCommission/EACEA/Eurydice 2019: 24). In almost half of EU countries there was no mention of asylum seekers and/or refugees in top-level policy documents. Few countries had implemented specific strategies at national or regional levels to facilitate access, and among those that had adopted national policies, there was considerable variation in the scope of such policies. Germany stood out as having the most comprehensive policy approach with a strategy to facilitate pathways to HE for refugees and actions to address recognition of qualifications and prior learning, bridging programmes, guidance and counselling services and financial support. The strategy was underpinned by quantitative targets for providing new places in foundation programmes and a clear budget allocation from the federal government (EuropeanCommission/EACEA/Eurydice 2019).

One of the common features of the Syrian, Afghan and now Ukrainian crisis has been the extraordinary outpouring of support from volunteers, community groups and civil society, including universities. In the UK, there has been a substantial growth in the number of universities offering scholarships to forced migrants over the past decade, particularly since 2015/2016. More than 70 HE institutions currently offer scholarships to people seeking sanctuary, compared to just 11 in 2011 (Murray, 2022). These university-led initiatives stand in contrast to the increasingly exclusionary and inhospitable environment created by the UK government. In response to the current crisis, Universities of Sanctuary along with Student Action for Refugees and Refugee Education have drawn up guidelines with the twin aims of promoting a sustainable, long-term structure of welcome and support for displaced students and academics and supporting the viability of the HE sector in Ukraine (Universities of Sanctuary, Student Action for Refugees and Refugee Education, 2022). The guidelines strongly urge universities to provide supplementary opportunities, which extend existing initiatives, rather than replace existing support for sanctuary-seekers or absorb the limited number of opportunities already available. Universities are also encouraged to consider how they can support the viability of the HE sector in Ukraine in the long term, through twinning with universities or offering other forms of institutional support. Other initiatives in the higher education sector include a sponsorship model which aims to develop education-led pathways for refugees and their families (Parry & Ansems de Vries, 2022). Undoubtedly, the current crisis has accelerated and given long-overdue urgency to the potential role of HE institutions in providing support to refugees and more accessible education pathways for refugees.

The brutal war in Ukraine has revealed an uneven global humanitarian response to refugee crises, one which privileges the White, European subject over others. However, it also represents a historic moment in the way in which Europe understands and has responded to refugee movements. The opening of borders and recognition of the importance of HE access for refugees are unprecedented and demonstrate how the impossible becomes possible when there is the political will and the public support. The needs of refugees are on HE institutional agendas in a way never seen before as universities chart new routes to support displaced students and academics. Doors to HE are opening to refugees, albeit on a scale far short of the demand. There is much which can be learnt from the ways in which governments, citizens and educational institutions have mobilised to provide a human-based response to Ukrainian refugees. For this to be a transformative moment in refugee education, the response needs to be embedded in policy and practice, and as Murray (2022) argues, the discretionary practices initiated by HE institutions for refugees need to be translated into tangible universal rights to study, supported by access to mainstream funding and support. Crucially, we also need to galvanise the momentum and solidarity for Ukrainian refugees and to advocate for the equal moral value of all refugees. Regardless of race, nationality or the country they are fleeing from, refugees deserve to be treated with dignity and respect and to have the opportunity to rebuild their lives, including through access to education.

Notes

1. Following McEwan (2009) and Santos (2016) I use Global South and Global North as metaphorical, rather than geographical distinctions, to recognise that poverty and exclusions, and wealth and privilege, occur in both the geographical south and north.

2. For a critical analysis of the history of the UN Convention and the concept of the ‘refugee’, see Morrice (2021).