Who are we

This Special Interest Group (SIG) is a group of people from the community, higher education, vocational education and school sectors who have an interest in supporting educational opportunities for students from refugee backgrounds.

Objectives

• Create greater collaboration and networks between institutions, practitioners and providers to achieve better outcomes for students from refugee backgrounds
• Share ‘best practice’ initiatives, research, interventions, programs and support mechanisms across Australia
• Share information about pathways into higher education available to students from refugee backgrounds and other culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) students
• Advocate with and on behalf of students from refugee backgrounds on issues that affect their ability to access, engage in and transition out of higher education

SIG activities

• Host quarterly teleconference meetings with representatives of the different stakeholder groups (universities, community organisations, students, schools, and Vocational Education and Training providers) across Australia (state/territory, metropolitan, regional/rural)
• Hold an annual face-to-face meeting (symposium or conference) to create new and strengthen or consolidate existing partnerships
• Hold symposia in different states and territories to share good practice, research findings and advocacy

Upcoming Teleconferences 2017

Main teleconference

All dates Thursday @ 3pm (AEST)

2 March: Youth perspectives on education
18 May: Skills recognition, re-training and accreditation
17 August: Internships and apprenticeships/traineeships
16 November: In-school models of support and guidance for pathways

The work of the ‘Education Pathways for temporary visa holders’ sub-group

All dates Thursday @ 12pm (AEST)

23 March
22 June
21 September
7 December

Join

Please join our Google Group web forum here.

For further information, please contact: educationsig@refugeecouncil.org.au

Supported by:

Education for people seeking asylum

Currently, people seeking asylum and refugees on temporary visas are effectively prevented from pursuing further education. We are calling on State and Federal Governments to remove these financial barriers and provide education for all.

Join our Education for All campaign here.

Recent updates

Resources

This is a list of academic and other resources on supporting people from refugee backgrounds in further education. It is compiled on the free reference management software Zotero.