Refugees ‘losing hope for future’ due to barriers to higher education in UK

Refugee and asylum-seeking children in the UK are “losing hope for the future” due to a lack of support to progress into higher education, a charity has warned.

Refugee Education UK says students are being faced with language barriers, complex enrolment processes and a lack of awareness among colleges and universities on asylum applications, which have all led to delays in young people continuing with higher education.

The charity has received a significant increase in the number of enquiries made to its education advice service for refugee and asylum-seeking young people over the last few years.

Between September 2021 to August 2022, the total number of enquiries increased by 45 per cent compared to the previous year.

This figure has more than doubled, by 125 per cent, compared to the three years prior.

Ahmed Mohammed, 21, a refugee from Eritrea, told Sky News that a delay in enrolment means he is years behind his age group.

“Enrolment is a very hard process,” he said. “Sometimes they say you need an online application and as a person that doesn’t know English, you cannot do this and so you just give it up and the whole year goes by. It’s just wasted.”

Mr Mohammed was already behind due to the time it took to flee Eritrea and begin school in the UK.

He arrived with “very basic” maths skills as the last education he received was at around nine years old, he said.

He struggled in a high-level GCSE class which left him feeling “not smart” and as though he was in the “wrong place”.

Gobika, 24, from Sri Lanka is struggling to get into university as she is yet to pass her GCSE English.

She told the broadcaster that she had already taken a GCSE in Sri Lanka, but was asked to take it again when she came to the UK almost five years ago.

At almost 25 years old, she feels unable to plan her future due to the delay in starting higher education.

“We often have young people say to us that so much of what they get asked about is backwards-looking,” said Catherine Gladwell, Refugee Education UK’s Chief Executive.

“Education is often the one thing in their lives that is actually forward-looking. So when you take that away, what you’re doing is taking away that young person’s chance to imagine and envision and be equipped for the future that they should have.”