Integration and Identity among Refugee Children in Ethiopia: Dilemmas of Eritrean and Somali Students in Selected Primary Schools of Addis Ababa
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Date
2016-04
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to analyze the practices and dilemmas of integration and preservation of
identity of urban refugee children in Ethiopia. In this study, comparative case study design was employed.
Two refugee communities in Addis Ababa, namely, Eritrean and Somali refugees, were selected as cases.
Six primary schools in Addis Ababa accommodating Eritrean and Somali refugee students were selected
as research sites. The major sources of data were refugee students, primary schools principals, primary
schools teachers, refugee parents, urban refugee central committee members, host community
representatives, and experts from ARRA, UNHCR, DICAC-RRAD, and JRS, and documents. Sample from
target population was drawn purposefully using criteria for each target population. A total of 98 individuals
were drawn as sample in this study. In addition, six classroom observations and six observations of refugee
students in and around the six primary schools compounds were undertaken. Instruments of data collection
used include interview, focus group discussion, observation and document analysis. Findings of this study
revealed that refugee policy in Ethiopia has mixed characteristics of openness and restriction, and as a
result, in Ethiopia, while quantity of asylum is acclaimed, quality of asylum can be criticized on grounds of
legal reservations to and restrictions on the basic rights of refugees including movement, employment, and
education. All letters, directives, and guidelines from MoE on refugee education in Ethiopia are mainly
preoccupied with provisions for the recognition of prior learning of refugee students. Provisions regarding
the processes of integration and the practices to preserve the identity of refugee students are totally missing
in the letters, directives and guidelines. The actual roles that MoE and AACGBE are playing in urban
refugee education in Addis Ababa are, at best, peripheral. ARRA is playing the major role in the provision
of education to refugees. As the result of the interplay among various factors, in Addis Ababa, while
Eritrean refugees and the host community have established positive relationship, the relationship between
Somali refugees and the host community is fraught due to various misunderstandings. There are strong
controversies between Eritrean and Somali refugees on the one hand, and UNHCR, ARRA and other NGOs
working on urban refugee program in Addis Ababa on the adequacy of subsistence allowance and the
phased transfer of refugee students to government schools. The overall experiences of integrating Eritrean
and Somali refugee students in the primary schools of Addis Ababa suggest that integration, from the point
of view of agencies and school authorities, is degenerated to just physical placement of refugee students
into the schools together with local students, particularly through the phased transfer to government
schools. There are no formal school based approaches to facilitate celebration and promotion of Eritrean
and Somali refugee students’ identity in the primary schools of Addis Ababa. Primary schools are striving
to make refugees identify themselves with their Ethiopian co-ethnic groups. Hence, primary schools, due
to lack of awareness and resources, are striving to form a contrived identity to refugee students. Due to
their dispersed settlement, the preference for disguised existence, positive relationship and better degree of
integration with host community due to cultural compatibility, Eritrean refugee parents are struggling to
justify to their children how Eritrean identity is distinct, particularly, from that of Ethiopian ethnic
Tigreans. The concentrated settlement of Somali refugees in visible communities in Addis Ababa and the
practical utility of Somali religion, culture and language for their day-to-day life, left Somali refugees in
Addis Ababa to be less integrated with the host community. In order to learn, maintain, and transmit their
distinct identity, Somali refugees in Addis Ababa rely on the family, media, religious organizations (i.e.,
Koranic schools and Mosques), and private language schools, which are competing in many terms with the
primary schools accommodating Somali refugee students. From the findings of this study several
implications for policy and practice were suggested. Initiating comprehensive and explicit refugee policy
in Ethiopia; designing arrangements that can facilitate synergy between the MoE’s expertise in education
and ARRA’s expertise on refugee issues; facilitating forums and resources that can promote proper
information flow among all stakeholders in urban refugee education; developing clear guidelines on the
integration and preservation of identity of refugee children in Addis Ababa schools; developing capacity
of agency personnel, refugee communities, school authorities, and teachers on the implementation of
refugee students integration and identity; designing programs for the inclusion of refugee education in the
teacher training programs and developing degree program on education in emergencies are the major
implications of the findings
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Philosophy