What would you do if a student enters your class sharing an information that he/she is a refugee? Help him/her to solve the administrative barriers, language problems, content knowledge pre-requests? Is this issue somehow related to emergency education? Should universities form such special departments or can these issues be solved within the existing ones?

Tamils from Srilanka have been shuttling back and forth...

With concern for those in srilanka now...

Allow universities in Tamil Nadu to conduct correspondence courses in Sri Lanka for the benefit of Tamil

Recalling the stay granted by the Madras High Court on the direction of the University Grants Commission on a petition filed by the Annamalai University, Dr Ramadoss said though he did not want to go into the details of the case, the UGC should allow universities to conduct distance education in Sri Lanka.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/pmk-wants-tn-varsities-to-conduct-distance-education-in-sri-lanka/article7786271.ece

What would you do if a student enters your class sharing an information that he/she is a refugee? Help him/her to solve the administrative barriers, language problems, content knowledge pre-requests? Is this issue somehow related to emergency education? Should universities form such special departments or can these issues be solved within the existing ones?

• Handling such issues inside the class room is out of bounds and perhaps requires a bigger ambit of power, people and resources.
• Refugee problems can be only  an information provider or sensitization (without directly experiencing, but can feel)  to the class in general where others can get to know the difficulties and problems faced by the refugees during the process of turmoil.
• Out of humanitarian gestures, help offer-able and affordable or possible can be done.
• Help or support of relevant NGO's in the society can be coordinated to take care.
• At times even universities can be of no help unless there is state directives to process through the refugee issues.

Dear George,

I think that there is a difference between immigrant and refugees students. Those with immigrant background living in a foreign country as a second or a third generation can find their ways to integrate in the educational system and the society. Yet, the situation for refugees seems more difficult in the sense that in the moment they arrive, they do not possess any documents to prove their previous education, not to mention other barriers. In the current situation in Europe, we are talking about thousands of such students whose competences are hard to be verified. I am sure that Canada, as a highly developed country, can solve single cases like you mentioned without any problems. That is however not the case with the countries on the Balcan, for example.

Best wishes,

Ana