How can educational researchers respond to the refugee crisis?

Building on discussions at ECER 2015 in Budapest, BERA members and delegates used the opportunity of being gathered at the annual conference in Belfast to discuss how they might individually and collectively respond to the current refugee crisis in Europe.

This page has been created to be a guide to useful links or suggestions for actions that stem from those discussions.

BERA itself is considering what options it might make as an organisation which might well include writing to the UK Government.

The ECER response can be found here.

Some relevant issues are addressed in the Fair and Equal Education manifesto published by BERA in spring 2015.

Please do consider writing a blog for BERA on these issues. 

Some useful resources and other website were suggested by participants. These include:

• Links on refugees from the Multiverse archive
• The RITES project at the University of Strathclyde
• Teachers TV and one specifically on refugee children
• An archive British Council resource
• Madeleine Arnot and Halleli Pinson for the Research Consortium on the Education for Asylum-Seeker and Refugee Children
• Refugee scholarships being offered by the University of Warwick

Other suggested actions for people to consider include:

• Network with universities in affected countries and ask how we can help them
• Establish links with educators who are based in countries where there is conflict to support those living under challenging conditions
• Send tweets to refugee education/research academics to inform them of our support/encouragement
• Write to VCs to wave university tuition fees for refugee students
• Develop volunteering or placement projects for students on UK education programmes that work with refugees
• Request that universities develop within their teacher education departments short courses for refugees who are qualified teachers to achieve QTS
• Develop courses to assist transition of refugees into a UK teaching qualification, particularly for those who are part-way through a qualification
• Address the shortage in Maths and Physics teachers by offering refugees with this knowledge free training and accommodation
• Draft a proposal to look at educational issues for refugees for the BERA research commissions

Please make any other suggestions or send useful links to admin@bera.ac.uk and we will keep this page updated.