Introduction
Getting an education is the number one reason given for sending children overseas. The situation in the majority of Somali areas means that for rich and poor alike the compelling need when it comes to education is simply to have one. To many parents the prospect of having no education at all for their children, or being limited to a rudimentary, Koranic one, justifies extreme solutions. But the experience of separated children seems a far cry from the "golden opportunity" the parents perceive it to be.
Very few adults in the homeland appear to appreciate the unique difficulties unaccompanied children face in attempting to realize the dream. In reality, most separated children fail to fulfil even their most basic potential and struggle to cope with daily life in a foreign school. The few who do succeed in the education system and gain the enviable qualifications unavailable at home are often plagued by emotional problems concerning identity, belonging and separation.
Within the diaspora, there is a growing unease over the experiences of these children. Significantly, it is the failure of children in the education system abroad that has been cited as one of the main reason for sending children back to the homeland.
[Somali schools]
Fitting in
The experience of separated children in the education system of the host country is probably one of the most significant factors in terms of quality of life and future adult potential. Even those who succeed find it a lonely experience.
Houdan, who is reading for a degree in Bio-Medical Technology in Stockholm, arrived in Sweden as an unaccompanied child at the age of 13, with the responsibility of a four-year-old and eight-year-old sister. Despite her academic success, she told IRIN she struggled to make friends, "ached" to be back with her family, found her responsibilities for her sisters had made it difficult to study at home, and felt a continued sense of isolation: "I feel however long I have been here, I will never belong …My school work was good because I concentrated hard on my studies to stop myself from thinking about what has happened to me."
Houdan is adamant in her belief that Somali children should not be sent away by their parents, because the problems they suffer outweigh the advantages: "It is tragic; the children cannot handle it well, and they don't make it. They can't take advantage of the opportunities they are sent for because of their circumstances."
Lost in an alien system
The experience of an alien education system is particularly agonizing for a separated child, as it is the most critical socialization and assimilisation process. But the circumstances of separated children - the feeling of rejection, confusion over personal identity and other problems like trauma and anxiety - often means school operates in the reverse, and widens the gap instead of closing it.
Photo: UNICEF  |
| Rudimentary education and unrecognised qualifications make it a "dead-end" system for children | "They get lost in school life…they can't make friends because of the communication gap, and the teachers can't understand them, and their guardians can't help them…the child feels a sense of negligence and abandonment by the teachers and school, which develops into a feeling of inferiority…The other children know they have a weaker person in the class, and so they torment and bully them", Somali educationalist Hussein Hassan told IRIN in London.
Education specialists, social workers and government officials pointed out to IRIN that, as a group, Somali refugee children tended to do poorly in the education systems in Western Europe and North America. This is attributed to a number of problems the children face, and should be seen in the wider context of problems faced by all refugee and migrant communities. For example, most Somalis are forced to enter schooling by year group rather than ability, despite the fact that nearly all have enormous gaps in their education because of the circumstances in their homeland. Trauma and separation are also factors in adapting to a new environment and culture. Language and religion can also be significant obstacles in the system.
[Teacher in Sweden, on unaccompanied refugee children learning Swedish]
In the classroom
In his study of Somali refugee children17, Hassan recommended that schools should adopt an approach to the psychological issues affecting refugee children, particularly racism; and that the schools should be more flexible on the admission policy, allowing pupils time to adjust and develop their linguistic and academic capabilities, instead of being categorized by age only. He noted there had been little research done on the experiences of unaccompanied Somali children in the education system, but said community leaders were particularly concerned about this group of children. "The community leaders observed that the worst [cases] are those unaccompanied children who came here without parents. The majority of [children] in detention are of this category."
Hassan gives a psychiatrists' list of some of the problems refugee children experience, including sadness or irritability, poor concentration and restlessness; aggression and disruptiveness as a result of distress; fear of loud noises or voices, or of groups of men, or men in uniform; physical symptoms such as nightmares, aches and pains, loss of appetite; frustration and insecurity. In one study on refugee children in a London school, a head teacher reported this: "Some of his refugee children had appeared to run amok one afternoon, and had been quite unable to settle, and the whole school had been disrupted by their wild behaviour. The trigger for this behaviour was the local police helicopter circling overhead."18
Studies of refugee children in schools show that racial and sexual harassment is a common occurrence, particularly in mixed sex schools, and is exacerbated by religious intolerance. Somali girls wearing the hijab19 say they face racial taunting, social exclusions and at times physical attacks. After the 11 September 2001 events many Somali girls and women in London were terrified into removing their scarves because of the number of assaults - including spitting, insults and harassment - IRIN was told during the course of research there.
Conflicting values at home
Hassan points out in his study that the refugee children suffer from a whole range of stresses that are not easily identified - for example, conflicting values and demands in their two worlds, the school and home. Guardians are likely to impress upon children that they should do what is expected of them at school, while at the same time insisting the children abide by the customs and norms of the family at home. If they fail to cope with the education system, the likelihood is that the children will fall on to the edge of society and be particularly vulnerable to anti social or criminal behaviour. "Our children join the 'no-hope' gangs and go shoplifting… They learn to drink and take drugs", one Somali community leader told IRIN.
Photo: IRIN/Jenny Matthews-Network |
| "I concentrated hard on my studies to stop myself from thinking about what has happened to me" - Houdan, reading for a degree in bio-medical technology | Social workers and teachers also say that problems for the children arise from the fact that many Somali adults do not engage with the education system, either because they are unable to (illiteracy and language problems), or because they are unaware of the expectations of the Western mode of education. Most are unfamiliar with the "form-filling" culture, which means children are excluded from vital lists, and sometimes unfairly penalized. For example, if a parent fails to write a letter when their child is sick, the child will acquire the stigma of "unauthorised absence".
[Somali woman on her experience with schools in Canada]
Where unaccompanied children do manage to adapt to the new system, they may find themselves vulnerable to disapproval of the more conservative Somali community. Ismahan, interviewed in Stockholm, was smuggled to Sweden as an unaccompanied child when she was 14 years old. She was left outside the door of a police station. After trying to contact her family through the Red Cross, she accepted life in Sweden, and eventually got an apartment of her own when she was 17. "It was very tough at first to manage my studies…at school the kids swear and show no respect…I was alone, dealing with the bills, and trying to study. Eventually I had a good relationship with my teacher, and I liked my independence. But I didn't have such a good contact with the Somali society."
Other difficulties include adapting to an entirely new method of education that stresses initiative and self-discipline rather than learning by rote under strict supervision. As a result, many Somali children struggle to understand their place and role in a liberal society, which frowns on the disciplinarian upbringing they are likely to have experienced at home. They find themselves in a culture that encourages them to question their own guardians and traditions, but is frequently dismissive or contemptuous of minority groups, perceiving them as unruly and aggressive. According to Hassan, Somali children are considered aggressive in schools because of the way they tend to respond to teasing and bullying - "Culturally, Somalis are told at home, don't lie down, defend yourself, prove yourself a man."
In London schools, Somali children had a reputation of being quick to pick a fight or pull a knife, IRIN was told by a variety of professionals. With the violence they are likely to have experienced in their home country, and the cultural taunts they may experience from adults at home, Somali children have been shown to tend towards violent behaviour in the playgrounds and on the streets.
"Our boys are particularly vulnerable, because they have very poor role models at home - unemployed male relatives who chew qat20 and talk about the war," one Somali teacher told IRIN in London. Expulsions may end up in criminal behaviour, prison or juvenile detention, and alienation from the Somali community. Negligence and frustration at school also leads to under achievement, failure to secure qualifications, and disapproval -and sometimes rejection - by the Somali community as well as the host society.
[Mulki Muse Galal, on Somali children and the education system in Britain]
17 The Educational Experiences of Somali Refugee Pupils in the United Kingdom, Hussein H Hassan Dissertation submitted to the University of Oxford 1998
18 Working with Refugee Children: One school's experience, by Caroline Lodge, in Jill Rutter (ed) Refugee Education: Mapping the Field (Trentham Books Ltd, London) 1998
19 Hijab is the Islamic dress worn by women that covers much of the body.
20 Qat is a narcotic leaf grown in East Africa and imported by the Somali diaspora.
Cycle of prejudice
The problems of refugee children in a foreign education system have become a well-known - but under-researched - issue in Europe and North America. In some countries, like Britain, it has contributed to a general disapproval or hostility towards asylum seekers. Following the influx of Somali refugees into Britain in the early 1990s, the tendency towards violence in schools created distrust and antagonism among other parents. A British official who had worked on immigration matters with asylum-seeking Somalis confirmed this: "The arrival of traumatized Somalis had a negative effect on the communities which took them in. In 1996 a six-year-old Somali child stabbed another in London, which caused the communities to turn against Somalis."
According to this official, there was no real effort on the part of the government and the local authorities to have an integration policy in the schools: "It would have been better to make a proper placement - the children came with a different religion, different language, a strong sense of culture, and because they came in such large numbers, they …were resented."
Building relationships
But where there had been efforts to understand refugee issues, the results were positive, psychiatrist Shelia Melzak told IRIN in London. Working with traumatized refugees, including separated Somali children, Melzak pointed to a case where complaints against the Somali community in a London borough resulted in a meeting between the headmaster and Somali parents and guardians. Guidelines to the school system, the role of teachers, and the expectations the school had of parents and guardians were then translated into Somali by the community and printed as a booklet. This improved the relationship with the school, and also helped the Somali children.
Other initiatives made by the Somali community include the setting up of homework clubs. For unaccompanied children, the battle to cope with life in a classroom is more than matched by the struggle to cope with homework - frequently not understood, and typically difficult to achieve at home.
Ahmad, who was sent to London when he was 15, was left in a phone box by the "fixer" who flew him from Nairobi, through Dubai, to Britain. He ended up with distant relatives, in a family of one woman and seven children in a small apartment. The other children became "abusive" towards Ahmad: "They treated me differently; they didn't like me." Ahmad ended up sleeping on the floor of a community organization, shifting around hostels for the homeless, and staying with various Somali families. For a long time, he didn't go to school; when he did, he hated it. "I had a problem at school…I had a language problem. I sat in the class, but there was a lot I didn't understand…it was very difficult to do homework because the place I was living was very overcrowded…I was always in trouble and eventually I stopped going."
Accessing education
Despite the fact that an unaccompanied refugee child is entitled to the same education rights as a native child in Western European and North American countries, much depends on the ability with which the foreign child can access such an opportunity. In the case of separated children, there are many internal obstacles - personal trauma, depression, preoccupation, homelessness and isolation - and external obstacles - language problems, xenophobia, bullying and religious intolerance - that are likely to interfere with the child's development and capabilities. The evidence suggests that it is unlikely that a child sent away by its parents will fulfil "the dream" of a superior education and good employment opportunities. Success stories are few.
If they fail to cope with the demands of a foreign education system, there is, moreover, a high probability that the child will become vulnerable to depression, abuse, drug dependency or criminal behaviour. It is at this stage that a dangerous gap opens up between the two worlds - or the two identities - and the separated child falls into an emotional chasm.
[ENDS]
|