Refugee Education in Australia by Emily Temkin and Elijah Septoff

History of Australia

Australia is home to one of the oldest cultures indigenous groups in the world, called the Aboriginals. They are believed to have arrived at Australia by boat over 50,000 years ago. At the time of European settlement, there was an estimated   1 million aboriginal people spread across the continent of Australia. At that time, the people were broken up into 500 nations and 700 languages were being spoken. Australia  was colonized by Captain James Cook who claimed the land for the British. The land was colonized to be used as a penal colony and the British sent convicts there to be imprisoned. Free settlers started to flow into the continent in the early 1790’s. As more and more people were entering the country, the Aboriginal people were pushed out of their land and were exposed to foreign illnesses. As the 1800’s rolled around more people continued to come from Britain. Land was turned into farms. By 1901, Australia was divided into 6 states, but they came together to sign a constitution and contined to become more independent from the British.

The First World War had a big impact on Australia; Australia did not have enough men representing them in the war to be a competitive force, and many of the men during their service. During the Great Depression, Australia took a hit as many of its financial institutions collapsed. Following the Second World War, migrants from all over Europe and the Middle East moved to Australia and got jobs in the prospering manufacturing sector. The economy continued to boom throughout the 1950’s as the country had large national building projects, international demand grew for Australian exports and Australian home ownership increased by 30%. Although still being a part of the British Commonwealth, Australia gained much independence during the 1960’s as they resisted to participate in the Vietnam war. Australia itself takes up 5% of the world's mass and is the 6th largest country, and the largest country that is surrounded by water. It is the smallest of the continents on earth. It has a population of 17.5 million.

Refugee Education

        All people, natives or refugees, have the right to an Education as the 1989 convention on the rights of the child, the 1951 Refugee convention, and UNICEF highlight: “Education is a fundamental human right: every girl and boy in every country is entitled to it.” Six million refugees are school aged, however, more than half of them (3.7 million) have no school to go to. Without an education, these refugees are put at a disadvantage; attending school can provide so much to students which help them grow into productive adults. As Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, says, “Education is one of the few opportunities we have to transform and build the next generation” and UNICEF says, “Education enables refugees to positively shape the future of both their countries of asylum and their home countries when they one day return.”. Refugee students are 5 times more likely to be out of school than non-refugee students. 50% of refugee students of the primary school age attend school and this number vastly decreases down to 22% enrolment rate of refugee students in secondary school. Additionally, only 1% of refugee kids go on to attend college or university. With less than 2% of humanitarian aid going towards education, this problem is often overlooked.

Refugees (in Australia)

There are 65.3 million displaced people across the world, of that 21.3 million were classified as refugees in 2015. Of the total  number of refugees, 11,766 refugees are in Australia which means only .48% if the world’s refugees are protected in Australia in 2015. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Turkey who houses 2.5 million refugees making them the country hosting the most refugees. The top home countries for refugees are Syria, Afghanistan, and Somalia.

Education in Australia

        The Australian educational system is split up into three divisions: primary school (kindergarten – 6th or 7th grade), secondary school (7th or 8th – 10th grade), and senior secondary school (grades 10 - 12), this is similar to how school is broken up in other countries, including the United States. In addition to their traditional schooling system, as mentioned above, Australia offers a tertiary education as well including universities and Vocational Education and Training (VET). Since English is the official language of Australia, it is used to teach in classes as well. Some schools offer bilingual languages or programs for learning other languages, however compared to other countries, a vast majority of Australian students are monolingual. The Australian school year runs from January – December. There is a national Australian Curriculum which sets country wide expectations for all students. Besides the national curriculum, the schools really vary by state and territory with how the curriculum is implemented.  

        The Australian curriculum differs from that in other countries as they have the Australian Qualifications Framework (AFQ). The AFQ was created in 1995 and is a way of tracking progress in tertiary education. It consists of 10 levels each represent different accomplishments ranging from Certificate I through a Doctoral degree, with various degrees like associate, bachelor, graduate and masters as levels in between.  

        In Australia, the public schools are free for Australian Residents, however students on visas may be required to pay to attend the public school. Additionally, even for Australian residents, they are still expected to pay for school uniforms, books, and supplies.  In addition to the public schools, there are also private and boarding schools in Australia. The private schools are mostly religion based. The majority of these school are Christian schools, however in larger cities there are often Jewish, Islamic and Buddhist schools as well. The boarding schools in Australia are typically for students who live in isolated areas, and subsidized by the state or territories government. The private and boarding schools, aren’t required to follow the Australian National Curriculum although many do. The schools that don’t follow that often offer the International Baccalaureate.

        Results from the PISA exam show that Australian teens are falling behind their peers in other countries. For example, a 15-year-old Australian student tests the same as a 12-year-old Korean student for their problem-solving abilities. Additionally, foreign born Australian students are out performing Australian students born in Australia. The highest performing students in Australia are those that were born in China, Korea, and Sri Lanka. This may be because Australia’s early child education is behind other countries. So, students aren’t exposed to a classroom as early as their peers in other countries. Only 18% of Australian 3-year-olds attend an early childhood classroom, which is far behind the average for developed countries which is 70%.

Refugee Education in Australia

In 1990, Australia attended the Convention on the Rights of Children (CRC). In this convention, five guidelines were created with the goal to give all asylum seeking and refugee students a fair education. The guidelines are as follows:

1. “The best interest of the child shall be primary consideration” (Bourgonje, 2010)
2. “Detention must be as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time” (Bourgonje, 2010)
3. “Children in detention have the right to be treated with humanity and respect” (Bourgonje, 2010)
4. “Children have the right to enjoy, to maximum extent possible, develop- ment and recovery from last trauma”  (Bourgonje, 2010)
5. “Asylum-seeking and refugee children are entitled to appropriate protection and assistance” (Bourgonje, 2010)

The author of this report, Paloma Bourgonje, also says that from the years 1999 to 2003,  2,184 asylum seeking children arrived into Australia and of those people, 976 were in detention at some point over the four year span. Numbers like these, violate the guidelines created in the CRC. These detention centers were supposed to provide an adequate amount of education none of the faculties available or systems provided were in any way on acceptable levels. In one case at the Woomera Detention Center, 3 staff members were responsible for teaching up to 2,000 people. One of those three staff members speaks of teaching as, “a haphazard affair” (Bourgoneje, 2010). Additionally,  Australia and the schools don't train the teachers adequately enough to be able to deal with children who have gone through traumatic experiences and the way that affects learning, which again violates the rights of the children as established in 1990.

Refugees entering Australia come in with various backgrounds of education. Some have had a formal education while others have had limited access (Ficarra, 2017). Ficarra writes about a study conducted by Taylor and Sidhu in 2012m this study targeted four schools in Queensland, Australia. These schools were known for their good approach to educating refugee students well, unlike what Bourgonje speaks of. Of the four schools this study looked into, one was public while three were catholic. These schools had a policy that focused on the inclusion of refugee students and strived to meet their needs. They took in refugee students and worked on their language skills, rather than expecting them to jump into the classroom appropriate for their age. Additionally, these schools promoted social justice in and out of their classrooms which is part of their holistic approach to education. These schools included the student’s families in the school community (Ficarra, 2017). As refugees continue to enter Australia, if more schools act as these four schools in Queensland does, refugees will have more opportunities in the classroom.

Works Cited:

Bourgonje, Paloma. Education for refugee and asylum seeking children in OECD countries: case

studies from Australia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Brussels, Belgium:

Education International, 2010. Print.

Ficarra, Julie. "Comparative International Approaches to Better Understanding and Supporting

Refugee Learners." Issues in Teacher Education Spring 2017 26.1 (2017): 73-84.