Barriers to continued schooling for Sudanese refugees in Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

While international society stresses the importance of education for refugees to improve their quality of life and engages in lots of projects, their enrolment performance is inferior. In this understanding, this paper reports anticipated barriers to continued schooling for Sudanese refugees in Cairo, Egypt. Studies on refugee education have found factors that hinder schooling, and which this paper categorizes as (1) administrative restrictions, (2) psychosocial stress, (3) lack of personal skills and information, (4) low household income, (5) cultural norms, and (6) inadequate learning environment. It turns out that most of these impediments are closely related to refugees' daily lives in the host community. Therefore, this study focuses on refugees living in urban settings. Research on Sudanese refugees in Egypt showed that (1) administrative restrictions and (4) low household income are challenges to enter schools in Egypt. However, will refugees' schooling barriers be solved if they are freed from documentation matters and financial struggles? I conducted seven household surveys with a semi-structured interview in Cairo. This study suggests that they prefer to send children to the community school run by refugee or migrant communities due to psychosocial stress, such as bullying and discrimination at the Egyptian schools. Sudanese refugees and migrants in Egypt have connectivity to the Egyptian education system following the two countries' agreement. All nationalities do not enjoy this educational privilege in Egypt. This advantage may eliminate the reason for attending Egyptian schools since they can enter the Egyptian higher education with the Sudanese school certificate. Moreover, this study suggests that their academic background is merely a formality due to the lack of legal protection. Accordingly, this study finds their living expenses account for half of their income, which possibly causes difficulties in regularly paying the education fee to the community school. Low household income is seemingly a significant barrier to continued schooling for refugees; however, psychosocial stress may have a greater influence than tightened family budget on refugees' school choices in Cairo.