“Not Do-Gooderism”: During Global Refugee Forum, OSUN Partners Pledge Critical Support for Higher Education Pipeline for Displaced Students

As the UN Global Refugee Forum 2023 convenes this week in Geneva, OSUN partner institutions have pledged to support higher education access for displaced students. American University of Afghanistan, Arizona State University, Bard College Annandale, Bard College Berlin, Sciences Po, and SOAS, are among the institutions who have signed on to fund more than 16,000 scholarships supporting a pipeline pilot program that equips students with the necessary critical, analytical, and digital literacy skills they need to advance in higher education and professional careers.
 
In addition to the contributions from OSUN educational institutions, D2L, an online learning company, has announced that it will partner with OSUN to contribute even more scholarships so refugee students can access the innovative pilot project. The project is based in OSUN’s Hubs for Connected Learning Initiatives, which serve the students in Dadaab and others throughout Eastern Africa, the MENA region, and South Asia.

OSUN partners made the commitments as part of the Global Refugee Forum’s 15by30 Multistakeholder Pledge, which is dedicated to increasing the enrollment of global refugees in higher education from 7% to 15% by 2030. OSUN is co-leading the pledge campaign alongside the government of Germany, Times Higher Education, and the Tertiary Refugee Student Network, among other federal governments and organizations.
 
At the Global Refugee Forum, an international platform for states and stakeholders dedicated to assisting refugees and their host countries, OSUN Vice Chancellor Jonathan Becker spoke about OSUN and its partners’ crucial role in supporting refugee students. “What Bard and OSUN do is most emphatically not do-gooderism: we are working with some of the most talented young people in the world, who enhance the learning of all of our students.”

Rebecca Granato, Director of OSUN’s Hubs for Connected Learning Initiatives, co-leads the pledge campaign as she also co-chairs the UNHCR’s Global Task Force on Education Pathways, which supports the expansion of third-country education as a complementary pathway for refugee students. 

In a panel at the Forum, OSUN Hubs student Mulki Mohamed spoke about how being part of OSUN has opened up worlds of opportunities for her. As a student leader, she noted the importance of engaging students across boundaries to “amplify refugee students’ voices, highlighting challenges, and recognizing contributions.”

The Hubs is just one part of the constellation of OSUN programs and projects that connect displaced students to higher education. OSUN partners have impacted over 80,000 refugee and displaced youth since the founding of the network in 2020.

Post Date: 12-14-2023