Enabling refugees to access higher education through communityuniversity partnership

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Enabling refugees to access higher education
through community-university partnership

• Cherie Woolmer
• Widening Participation Manager
• University of Brighton

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Workshop outline

• Overview of widening participation policy in UK
• Political, social and cultural context of
  refugees in UK
• Identifying barriers for refugees who want to
  access higher education
• Community/university partnership model of
  working-development of REMAS HE

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Widening participation who, what, why?

• Government focus on social class and 50
  participation target of 18-30 year olds by 2010
• Higher education institutions usually take a
  broader view on participation and inclusion i.e.
  disability, gender, age, ethnicity
• Drivers labour market demand social justice

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Refugees in the UK

• Facts
• Asylum applications have halved over the last two
  years (circa 34,000 claims in 2003)
• Nine out of ten applications are initially
  refused. 20 of appeals are successful
• 2/3 of worlds refugees are living in developing
  countries Europe hosts 25 of world total
  refugees
• UK home to less than 2 of world total is 9th in
  European league table and 22nd in the world
• Source Refugee Council 2005

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Refugees in UK continued

• Skills of asylum seekers and refugees
• 56 of those who arrived in Britain aged 18 or
  over had previous qualifications, with 23 having
  a degree or higher qualification
• On arrival, 17 spoke English fluently or fairly
  well with 65 having studied English before
  arrival
• Source Integration matters, DWP, March 2005
• In Brighton and Hove, 179 interviewees-113 (63)
  held qualifications with 50 (23)holding a degree
  or above
• Source Skills and qualifications audit of BME
  and refugees in Brighton and Hove, May 2005

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Working with refugees at the University of
Brighton

• Community University Partnership Programme-pilot
  project in 2003
• Action research to understand aspirations, needs
  and barriers to accessing HE for local refugee
  communities (Banks and MacDonald, 2003)
• Key feature was involvement of refugee community
  organisations in designing, implementing and
  disseminating findings

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Working with refugees at the University of
Brighton continued

• Series of pilot activity undertaken in 2003-2004
  (mentoring, orientation week, information day)
• Identified partnership working with refugee
  community organisations and services
• Opportunity for joint work with Centre for
  Continuing Education, University of Sussex
• Aimhigher funding secured in 2004 to develop
  joint service

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Towards a collaborative project-Development of
REMAS HE

• Roll out of pilot activities
• Mentoring, Academic Advisor Network, Ways into
  Learning and Work course, development of taster
  sessions
• Appointment of Refugee Outreach Worker
• Increase in geographic scope to include Brighton
  and Hove, Hastings, Crawley
• Steering group oversees the whole project with
  the active involvement of community partners
• Joint publicity

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Impact of activity

• Partnership work
• Exceeded year 1 targets
• Opportunities and challenges within partner
  universities
• different organisational cultures financial
  support for asylum seekers rethinking outreach
  models evidencing previous qualificationsstaff
  development language support sustainability of
  bespoke service in mass system.

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What are the issues?

• What do you see as the advantages of this model
  of working?
• And the disadvantages/issues?
• Talk about your own experience of partnership
  working

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Contact details

• Cherie Woolmer, University of Brighton
• T 00 44 1243 642713
• Email c.woolmer_at_brighton.ac.uk