Survival strategies among refugees in Africa: A comparative study of access to education among Rwandan refugees living in Zimbabwe and Congo

Abstract

One of the effects of forced displacement is the disruption of education for affected people. Upon their settlement in the country of asylum most refugees struggle to resume interrupted studies. As such, education constitutes one of the refugees‟ basic needs and human rights. However, enjoyment of the right to education among refugees is usually affected by the limited resources allocated to education especially in Africa due to high and constantly increasing number of refugees. It also depends largely on the host government‟s policy and willingness to grant refugees access to public educational institutions. In this regard, refugees‟ survival strategies for access to education becomes of paramount importance. The aim of this study was to investigate and to document the challenges and constraints pertaining to access to education among refugees living in Zimbabwe and Congo as well as the strategies that they adopt to overcome them. The study was informed by the fact that existing literature has abundantly highlighted the challenges and constraints to which refugees are constantly subjected for access to education, yet there remains a paucity of studies and data on the survival strategies that refugees adopt to overcome these challenges. Furthermore, existing literature lacks comparative data between countries and across types of refugees‟ settlements. This study targeted refugees staying in refugee camps, those settled in rural areas and those self-settled in urban settings. The study was inspired by Giddens‟ Structuration Theory and the Actor-Oriented Approach to highlight the agency of refugees in finding solutions to the various challenges, limitations and constraints that they encounter in exile with a particular emphasis on access to education. The study used a combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies to enter the refugees‟ world and to interact with them in their natural environment. It used structured interview, in-depth interview and focus group discussion techniques to collect data and testimonies about refugees‟ challenges and survival strategies pertaining to access and enjoyment of education in exile. The field research was conducted between 2009 and 2011. It reached out to 335 respondents through the survey, 22 participants through in-depth interviews and 120 participants through focus group discussions. The findings show that refugees are active agents in finding solutions to their plight. They highlight and stress the knowledgeability; the creativity and the ingenuity of refugees with regard their survival strategies for access to education in exile. The study establishes that refugees manage to circumvent the critical barriers affecting their access to education such as lack of identification papers, age limit and certification of previous studies, mostly through networking. The study proposes some recommendations for policy and decision makers to encourage and support refugees‟ creativity and entrepreneurship through self-help projects. It also advocates for more research interest on the refugee phenomenon and to introduce a course on forced migration in the faculty of social studies of the University of Zimbabwe.