Prohibitive fees and poor co-ordination among educators are two of the main barriers to higher education for people granted residence in Ireland, a new report has found.
The report, The Challenges and Obstacles facing Refugees, Persons with Leave to Remain and Persons granted Subsidiary Protection as they seek to access post-second level education in Ireland’ written for the Refugee Information Service, also points to the continuing barrier which a lack of widespread English language classes presents to refugees and people with leave to remain or under subsidiary protection.
Dr Liam Coakley, a Social and Cultural Geographer and author of the Position Paper said ‘Proficiency in English remains key. Service providers are active locally but much wider coordination of effort, accreditation of learning and progression onwards is needed. A national ESOL strategy would go a long way towards structuring this landscape’.
Dr Coakley also said ‘Existing requirements for some status categories to pay higher - 'EU' - fees remains an impediment to many and thus must be seen as discriminatory in effect. More specific research is required. In particular, accurate information on the outcomes of educational activity is needed and migrant experiences must be charted, as they move through post-second level education and into the labour force’.
Josephine Ahern, Director of the RIS said though surmountable, many of the problems have remained unchanged over a considerable period of time citing the EU’s Common Basic Principles on Integration’s emphasis on the importance of education to sustainable social cohesion and integration of migrants. This is also important especially at this time when there is huge emphasis nationally on the need for education and retraining in making up for the economic recession in Ireland.
‘Education is one of the many ways of preserving the human dignity of refugees, and clear and coordinated guidelines need to be put in place so these groups of people do not end up being socially and educationally disadvantaged and so we do not create further social, economic and political divisions in Ireland’ Ms Ahern said.
Ms Ahern emphasised the importance of adequate and comprehensive information on the different statuses and the rights and entitlements that go with them. She also explained the disabling effect of the lack of financial resources for refugees which results in their combining work with study in order to provide for families abroad. Ms Ahern therefore calls on key stakeholders in education to explore alternative mechanisms to financially assist these groups.