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| Afghan, Iraqi, and Pakistani teacher |
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| Focus Group with the refugee teachers |
"This is your time to study; once you are educated, then you can help your family." - INSTILLING HOPE: How a refugee teacher tries to motivate and keep their students in school. The refugee students worry that they are letting down their families by going to school and not working.
September 28, 2012
We felt so honored to be joined for our first refugee teacher focus group by three teachers - Iraqi, Pakistani, and Afghan. They are all from the same school which serves an incredible range of refugee ethnic groups in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia -- Sudanese, Somali, Palestinian, Iraqi, Pakistani, and Syrian. These teachers are refugees, themselves, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Here are some insights from the refugee teachers:
- Refugee Teacher Challenges --
- The biggest challenge the refugee teachers face is having students of different ages and abilities in the same classroom. It makes the teachers feel helpless and guilty for not being able to meet everyone's needs, and they need more support teachers.
- Parents --
- The refugee teachers need more support from the parents who do not seem to respect education and would rather have their children work than go to school. The teachers, however, felt compassion for the parents who "are also losing control of their lives, themselves."
- Refugee Student Guilt --
- The students have guilt over going to school and not helping their parents by working, instead of going to school -- "Sometimes the children feel useless, neglected, that they are a burden on their family or society."
- Hope --
- The students are also anxious about their future, since they know that their school does not produce a certificate recognized by Malaysian society, or by other societies, for that matter. The teachers work hard to keep the students hopeful and committed to their education.
- Emotions --
- One of the biggest issues in class is a tight knot of emotion, behavior and attention -- The students feel a palpable sense of anger and frustration. Then they are stuck for hours in a hot, small class and get into fights. Their fighting and anger gets in the way of their paying attention to learning.
- Coping with emotions --
- The teachers were concerned that the students were "not mature enough" to use strategies to cope with emotions on their own. The teachers find that the students largely cope by checking out with electronics or avoiding going home since home is a stressful place for them.
- Teacher and Student Pay --
- These teachers are at a school that pays them $10 ringitts per hour, which is the equivalent of U.S. $3 per hour. This pay rate may shock people, but most refugee teachers in Malaysia do not get paid. Recently, UNHCR started paying a limited number of refugee teachers a nominal fee.
- These refugee teachers also suggested combining refugee schools with paid vocational training for the students - this school tried it briefly recently and it energized the refugee students.
