Integration in a segregated setting: Education in Kenya’s Kakuma Refugee Camp

• In Event: Including the most marginalized in the global movement for education: access, quality, protection, and sustainability in refugee education

Abstract

This presentation will analyze comparatively the educational experience of refugee children and youth in Kakuma Refugee Camp and the ways in which UNHCR and partners work toward their integration within the national education system. In many ways, camp schools in Kakuma offer an ideal model of educational integration within a refugee context, ensuring that refugees benefit from existing national systems. However, camp schools are comprised of an overwhelming majority of refugee students and are largely staffed by refugee teachers. There are few opportunities for refugees to interact with Kenyan nationals, within or outside of school spaces. Leaving the camp to pursue post-primary education is one of the sole opportunities for refugee youth to socially integrate and access the civic space. Integration of refugees into the Kenyan education system takes place against the larger political backdrop of refugee status in Kenya: rising public fears about national security, a government directive for urban refugees to return to camps, and increased harassment of refugees by state actors. Whether refugees can socially integrate into Kenyan society, in education and elsewhere, is contingent on whether the state can create space for refugees within the national imaginary. The presentation is based on semi-structured interviews with staff members of international and national organizations working on refugee education and semi-structured interviews with teachers and classroom observations conducted in six camp schools.

Author

• Michelle Bellino, University of Michigan