Access for Syrian refugees into higher education in Germany: a systematic literature review

ABSTRACT

In the early years of the twenty-first century, the European Union faced an influx of refugees from war-torn areas of the world. By the end of 2015, nearly a million new refugees had arrived in Germany alone, half of them from Syria. Understanding how the Syrian refugee population has interacted with the German system of higher education is crucial for serving those students. This systematic review of studies published on this topic between 2015 and 2020 discusses the challenges experienced by Syrian refugee students accessing German higher education, the support they have received from German higher education institutions (HEIs), and policy reforms recommended by the studies reviewed for managing the influx of refugees into German higher education. I offer a synthesis of the contributions and gaps in the literature and propose thoughts for future research in this area for advancing our knowledge on the experiences of refugee students in accessing HE and easing their integration into HEIs, to the benefit of the internationalization of Germany’s HEIs and the country’s labor market.

KEYWORDS:

• Syrian refugees
• students
• higher education
• integration
• internationalization
• Germany

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my colleagues with whom I discussed coding of the studies selected for this systematic review. Many thanks to Dahlia Maree for proofreading this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sanaa Ashour

Sanaa Ashour is currently the director of the Sociology program at the College of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences, Al Ain university in the United Arab Emirates. She obtained her PhD in ‘Development Studies’ from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Bonn, Germany, and a master’s degree in Social Policy and Planning from London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Besides undertaking teaching and research roles as an associate professor in different universities in the United Arab Emirates, Ashour has held numerous senior management and consultancy positions in the public, non-governmental sector and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Germany, London and the Middle East. Her research interests are primarily focused on higher education institutional and policy dynamics. She published research articles on a range of policy-oriented higher education research topics, including employability, quality assurance, accreditation, internationalization, and impact of technology on higher education. Besides, she authored the ‘Ethic Politics and Policy Making Process’ book.