Quality Education for Refugees in Kenya: Instruction in Urban Nairobi and Kakuma Refugee Camp Settings

 
JEiE journal cover, 2015. Quality Education for Refugees in Kenya.

Summary

This article examines the quality of education available to refugees in Kenya, with a particular focus on classroom instruction. Findings suggest that quality instructional practices for refugees are constrained by limited resources, a lack of pedagogical training and content knowledge, and curriculum and language policies.

This research has implications for education policy related to teachers of refugees and the content and structure of their training and professional development.

Key Takeaways

We offer the following practical steps and actions based on this research below (click to expand).

+ For Policymakers


INSIGHTS ACTIONS
There are often few qualified national or host country teachers working in refugee communities, as educators are hesitant to work in the isolated and unstable environments that refugees are often confined to. Refugee teachers are also more likely to experience instability and need to relocate at any time, leading to steady turnover. ➟ Hire more refugee teachers: they often share languages and experiences with some of their pupils, facilitate building rapport with students, and can help them to understand parts of the national curriculum that may be unfamiliar to them. At the same time, make it easier for refugee teachers to be hired and receive adequate pay (i.e., full teacher salaries) so that they have the stability to continue teaching.
Of the 41 classes observed in this case study across six schools, 34 featured lectures as the primary mode of instruction, with a strong emphasis on rote memorization of facts and definitions. Students in these learning environments did not experience active individual involvement, conceptual understanding, or opportunities for meaningful, critical engagement. ➟ Teachers must be included in policy discussions related to instructional practices to promote learning. Complementary efforts should be made to decongest overcrowded classrooms and provide teachers with relevant and adequate teaching and learning materials, as training alone will not solve the problem. Doing so will help to support teachers and enable them the time and space to promote quality learning through students’ active involvement, social participation, and meaningful engagement.
Teachers who need the most instructional support were stifled by infrequent, poor quality, and irrelevant training opportunities and limited to no school-based support. Those with more training were better able to leverage existing resources and create their own, and also found more ways to work with the existing curriculum to make it relevant and meaningful to their refugee students than those with limited training. ➟ Improve national approaches to teacher professional development and the school-based pedagogical support that teachers receive. There is immense need for teacher-training opportunities that will help teachers acquire the knowledge and skills to develop instructional practices that can contribute to a quality education.

+ For Educators


INSIGHTS ACTIONS
Low levels of pedagogical training significantly affects educational quality. Whereas all teachers in the capital, Nairobi, were found to be Kenyan nationals with training experience, the majority of teachers in refugee settings were refugees with limited teacher-training opportunities in terms of options, duration, and quality. ➟ Create more conditions and opportunities for teachers’ professional development, especially with regards to classroom management. This will help not only to prevent burnout and high turnover rates, but also bolster the overall professionalization of the teaching corps, increase the value of the profession, and contribute to improved student learning outcomes.
The most robust teacher-training opportunity teachers described was one in which both refugee teachers and national teachers working in Kakuma refugee camp pursued an accelerated one-year diploma program which focused on curriculum studies, pedagogy, and content knowledge. These teachers taught in the morning at the camp-based primary schools and attended teacher-training classes in the afternoon. ➟

Provide teachers with ongoing, repeated, and school-based teacher-training support to help them move from learning to applying these strategies in the classroom. Specifically:

  • Teachers must have the opportunity to learn how to ask open-ended questions, to engage students in higher-order conceptual thinking, and to see each lesson as a lesson in content and language.
  • They also need to learn how to adapt curricular materials to the needs and experiences of refugee pupils without undermining the content knowledge required to perform well on examinations.
  • Implement longer and more frequent teacher training diploma programs in refugee settings and encourage active teacher participation to ensure high completion rates. Trainings should be conducted outside of school hours so that teachers can continue their teaching responsibilities.
Most refugee pupils arrived at their schools in Kenya with little to no knowledge of either Kiswahili or English, yet are required to begin instruction in both languages immediately upon enrolling. They were also expected to demonstrate a high level of competence in two languages simultaneously, although the grammatical structures and vocabularies differ radically from each other and from many of the refugees’ home languages. Meanwhile, teachers in camp-based schools were refugees themselves who spoke many languages and had varying degrees of competence teaching in English. ➟ Teachers of refugees must be given specialized training on second- and third-language acquisition and on managing and appreciating multilingual classrooms, particularly in camp-based environments, as refugees cannot learn English and Kiswahili simultaneously without additional support. Refugee teachers will often require language support, as they may not be familiar with the official language of instruction in the host country.
Figure 1. Core elements of learner-centered education.

+ For Researchers


FURTHER RESEARCH IS NEEDED TO EXAMINE:
  • The kinds of curriculum and pedagogy that can best support refugee students within the national systems of education in Kenya;

  • The success of teacher professional development and training programs for refugee educators in refugee camps and other crisis settings around the world.

Citation (APA): Mendenhall, M.,Dryden-Peterson, S., Bartlett, L., Ndirangu, C., Imonje, R., Gakunga, D., Gichuhi, L., Nyagah, G., Okoth, U., & Tangelder, M. (2015). Quality education for refugees in Kenya: Pedagogy in urban Nairobi and Kakuma refugee camp settings. Journal on Education in Emergencies 1(1): 92-130.

 
Quality EducationSarah Dryden-PetersonFor Policymakers, Language, Curriculum, Pedagogy, Integration