“A teacher who manages a classroom that include refugee learners will walk into perhaps one of the toughest classroom in the world” (UNHCR report 2017). While more and more higher education institutions have put in place inclusion programs for refugees, it appears that the need to train and guide academic and administrative staff who have to deal with refugee students is growing. Those who teach and/or welcome refugees in their academic programs/universities will meet situations they may have never been confronted to before and that imply a necessary guidance: refugees face very specific psycho-social troubles and needs and are often in difficult administrative and social situations. University staff need adapted information, training and guidance to be prepared to deal accurately and effectively with refugee students, which include intercultural trainings, tools for teaching in multicultural contexts, raising awareness on potential psychological disorders, etc. Unistar project will develop tools that are dedicated to European university staff, both administrative and academic, whose tasks imply working with and for refugees. For this project to work, close cooperation is needed between the higher education institutions, the experts involved and the networks of universities who will contribute to the wide spreading of the tools developed. Expected outcomes This project aims at developing resources for professors and administrative staff to carry out their work in the most professional and adapted way with refugee students at university. More specifically, the expected outputs are: - Online toolbox (model UNHCR) - 3 days-training model that HR officers / refugee experts can implement for staff in their HEI Higher education institutions will contribute in the management of the project, the mapping of existing practices, and the needs analysis. They are represented by VUB (Belgium), Vilnius University (Lithuania), Alice Salomon University of Applied sciences (Germany), Universidad Alcala (Spain), University of Applied Sciences, Utrecht (Netherlands) The experts who will develop the content of tools in collaboration with the HEI’s personnel are represented by UNHCR. The networks of universities will implement the dissemination strategy and contribute to the policy reform drafting and are represented by EUF. Associate Partners; Université Libre de Bruxelles ULB (Belgium), Université Paris Seine (France), Université Orléans (France). These tools are meant to be adapted at EU level and according to the local realities of each education system and in each higher education institution. The UNHCR Regional Representation for Western Europe developed an online tool to guide and support educators who work with refugee pupils and students. The current project aims at adapting this initiative and propose a similar online support tool to university staff. The impact produced by this project and its implementation at EU-level will therefore have a systemic effect and will benefit the European HEIs institutionally. We are convinced that the tools developed in the framework of this project will produce a multiplier effect as it answers a need that has been formulated at the scale of the EU by higher education institutions. By scaling up the online toolkit for teachers and the staff training model at EU level, this project will generate a significant impact on the motivation, competences and performances of educators and educational leaders working in a number of HEIs across the countries. Consequently the awareness among policy makers will raise as well.
Through the development of the UNSITAR Online Course and the UNSITAR Moderator’s Guide, the UNISTAR project’s team achieved the following: - Developing needs and action-based training tools that respond to university staff members’ and refugee students’ expectations and aspirations. - Offering European HEIs teaching and non-teaching staff the necessary resources and training tools to help become knowledgeable and skilled to carry out their work with refugee students in the most adapted. - Implementing the UNISTAR Online Course helped and would help universities in Europe to establish the necessary support mechanisms to facilitate the access of refugee students to higher education and provide them with the necessary guidance during their studies - Contributing, thanks to the impact-oriented results, to advancing refugees’ inclusion in HEIs and hosting societies. - Reach out to a broad audience of participants and stakeholders on local, regional, European and international levels through the dissemination activities. - Ensuring the adaptation of the outcomes according to staff members’ feedback to create an improved version. - Establishment of a solid partnership where flexibility and resilience are placed at its core.
Access to Higher Education is a fundamental human right, but for many refugees studying at university remains an aspiration; according to the UNHCR report Education 2030, globally, only 3% of refugees enrolled in HEIs compared to 37% of non-refugee students. This discrepancy in percentages is due to the challenges that refugee students face while starting and during their studies, which hamper their inclusion process in society. Committed HEIs can play a vital role in addressing these challenges by establishing the necessary support mechanisms in which well-equipped with knowledge and skills staff members are engaged. However, very few training tools are available at the disposal of HEIs staff (academics and administrative) working with refugees, resulting in an increased need for training and professional development. To address this gap, through the UNISTAR project, partner organisations joined the European efforts to advance the inclusion of refugees by developing comprehensive, blended and flexible training tools. Aiming at helping HEIs to organise adequate support mechanisms and staff members to be knowledgeable and skilled to be prepared to accurately and efficiently work and support refugee students.