Insights from the Welcoming Universities Summit Series Webinar #8 – Education Trajectories of Refugees
Following Refugee Week celebrations recognising the contributions of refugees to Australia, Session 8 of the Welcoming Universities Summit Series webinars explored refugee participation in education.
Dr John van Kooy (Senior Manager, Social Research at the Scanlon Foundation Research Institute) presented research conducted with colleagues Dr Sally Baker (Refugee Education Australia), Timothy McLennan (UNSW), and Prof Ben Edwards (ANU), drawing on longitudinal data from the Building a New Life in Australia (BNLA) study (2014–2023).
The findings shared by Dr van Kooy told a complex story of resilience, disruption, and systemic barriers, and sparked dynamic discussion about what needs to change to achieve equitable participation in education for people from refugee backgrounds.
Education Pathways Are Not Linear
Forced migration often involves years of disruption – interrupted schooling, missing certificates, and learning across multiple countries, languages and systems. The term “resettlement” can belie ongoing experiences of displacement through language barriers, financial insecurity and social isolation.
BNLA data reinforces that education pathways tend to be non-linear, with people moving in and out of study over time. The study charted five different ‘engagement states’ over six consecutive waves of the survey: disengaged from education or employment, language learning only, education or training only, employment only, and work and learning (dual engagement).
The data revealed 542 distinct pathways through these states across a 10-year period. In fact, 73% of participants followed a pathway unique to them alone – a powerful reminder that one-size-fits-all models do not reflect lived experience.
Participation Remains Uneven
Despite attempts to improve accessibility to education in Australia via fee deferral loan schemes for refugees, participation and completion rates for refugees remain low. Vocational education emerges as the most common pathway, while university participation remains comparatively limited.
Data from Australian Census and Migrants Integrated Dataset (2021) on highest completed education reveal a much lower percentage of humanitarian migrants aged 18 and over hold a bachelor’s degree or higher (14.6% males; 14.3% females), compared to skilled migrants (59.9% males; 64.6% females), and family migrants (35.3% males; 43.6% females).
A significant concern is persistent disengagement – once individuals disengage from education and employment, they are likely to remain so. In the study, 61% of disengaged participants stayed disengaged in the next survey wave.
What Drives Educational Participation?
The research identifies several key factors that shape whether refugee students participate in education:
1. English Language Proficiency
English is the single strongest predictor of participation. Each increase in proficiency significantly boosts the likelihood of engaging in study.
Yet developing these skills takes time – especially for learners starting from low literacy levels, sometimes without literacy in their first language.
2. Prior Education
Students with prior schooling, particularly higher education, are far more likely to continue studying in Australia.
However qualification recognition remains a major barrier – fewer than 2% of participants had their existing qualifications recognised.
3. Connection to the Labour Market
Being part of the labour force – whether employed or actively seeking work – was strongly linked to educational participation.
This highlights the interconnected nature of education and employment pathways.
4. Early Years of Settlement
The first 5 years of settlement are critical. This is when educational participation peaks – and when tailored support can have the greatest impact.
5. Bridging Social Capital
An interesting finding that corresponds with sociologist Mark Granovetter’s theory and research on the strength of weak ties is the importance of cross-community connections.
Students who developed relationships outside their own ethnic or cultural group were more likely to engage in education. By contrast, relying solely on support within one’s own community did not show the same effect.
This finding prompted subsequent discussion on several fronts:
– a question from Belinda Chapman (Regional Partnerships Officer, Cradle Coast Regional Partnerships Team, UTAS), highlighted the challenges of fostering cross-community connections, which can sometimes result in negative experiences. The prevalence and impact of racism within the university sector – underscored in the recent Respect@Uni Report – further contextualise these difficulties.
– a question from Nick Ross (National Director at The Social Policy Group, Migration Council Australia) identified opportunity for further research to explore bridging capital at a more granular level – number of connections, frequency, intensity or type – which may provide insight into what factors support positive cross-community connections.
– finally, Susana Ng (Senior Social Program Officer, City of Sydney) identified a gap in the engagement data collected by the BNLA survey, noting its exclusion of volunteering – largely due to inconsistencies in how volunteering is defined and measured. As Susana emphasised, volunteering is a powerful means of building community connections and gaining local experience.
Beyond Access to Ongoing Engagement
Lively discussion also highlighted a crucial point: access alone is not enough.
A question from Araluen Cotter (Manager Strategic Operations, Student Journey, UNE) about barriers and enablers to maintaining refugee engagement in education highlighted the need for nuanced qualitative data.
Seham Al-Shwayli (Master of Teaching EMAT Course Chair, Victoria University) shared her personal journey – from struggling to navigate higher education systems to becoming a university lecturer. Her reflections underscored the gap between opportunity and experience:
- Support systems may exist, but they are not always accessible or culturally responsive
- Classroom content and teaching approaches can alienate rather than include
- Career progression often remains unequal – even with equivalent qualifications
These lived experiences point to the need for institutional adaptation, not just increased access.
Advancing Institutional Adaptation Through Welcoming Universities
Welcoming Universities offers a practical pathway to this kind of institutional adaptation.
Through its community of practice, the initiative enables universities to share insights, test approaches, and learn directly from lived experience and emerging evidence. Knowledge translation and partnership development helps identify actionable strategies and strengthens collaboration between universities, industry, and community organisations.
The Welcoming Universities Standard further supports institutions to embed inclusive policies and practices in a systematic, measurable way.
Importantly, Welcoming Universities is uniquely positioned as an initiative of Welcoming Australia to foster the kinds of bridging social capital identified in the data as critical to refugee education trajectories – facilitating connections across sectors, building relationships beyond immediate communities, and strengthening links to employment pathways. In doing so, it helps shift the focus from access alone to sustained participation, progression, and belonging within higher education and beyond.
Trisnasari Fraser is coordinator of Welcoming Universities, a network that aims to build inclusion and belonging in the higher education sector.
Leave a Reply