“There is simply not enough talk about displacement in academic circles.”
These were the words of Dr Tugba Basaran, Director of the Centre for the Study of Global Human Movement, which opened the 2025 Cambridge Refugee Week conference. In one sentence, she elegantly summarised an uncomfortable fact that needed addressing.
The conference was a collaboration with the Centre for Study for Global Human Movement/ Cambridge Refugee Hub, led by Dr Basaran, the Centre for Lebanese Studies, led Dr Maha Shuayb, the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre and Cambridge Global Challenges.
Education in displacement
Dr Basaran’s opening statement provided the groundwork for this year’s theme: ‘Politics of Knowledge, Power, and the Struggle for Academic Futures: Higher Education and Schooling Amidst War and Displacement’. The aim was to examine systemic inequities and colonial legacies in ‘Global South’ education systems, the weaponization of education in conflict zones, and academia’s role in these systems.
In her own opening speech Dr Shuayb, British Academy Bilateral Chair of Education in Crisis, highlighted why there could not be a more crucial time to discuss this subject.
“While enrolment rates for forcibly displaced children have more than doubled from 30% to over 70% in the past two decades, systemic barriers persist,” she said. “Fewer than 30% progress to secondary education, and a mere 1% access tertiary education. This stark attrition underscores the urgent responsibility of universities to address structural inequities and create meaningful pathways for refugee learners."
Forced displacement has reached historic levels, with 1 in 67 people worldwide being refugees in 2024. Ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Sudan, and authoritarian governments in Afghanistan and Myanmar, have displaced millions. In the latter two, many people are internally as well as externally displaced. The recent end to the Syrian Civil War has also drawn attention to the 6 million Syrians displaced from their home country since 2011.
All these cases have seen people’s education disrupted. Warfare has destroyed both the education institutions and their accompanying digital infrastructure. Access to education is restricted for many people. Afghan women are a notable example, being actively denied education by the Taliban. Marissa Quie, from the Department of Sociology, spoke passionately about Afghan women as “living archives” of knowledge, who have been “reduced to bare life”.
The two-day conference brought together scholars, policy makers and practitioners from different regions, including the United Kingdom, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan, to discuss the existing provisions to support the education of refugees, displaced or caught in the midst of conflict and wars.
Several panels addressed the silencing of conflicts and emphasized the struggle of displaced scholars and institutions, particularly in Afghanistan, Sudan, and Tigray. They also responded to countries in the ‘Global North’, such as the USA and UK, cutting foreign aid. Shuayb explained that these cuts will not only lead to cuts for education programmes in the ‘Global South', but also de-prioritise refugee research.
These disruptions present challenges, but they also provide opportunities to design a better education system.
Rethinking Refugee Education
Refugee education has been heavily dependent on foreign aid. This was highlighted by the speakers in Lebanon, a country which has taken in 1.5 million Syrian refugees since 2011. Their initial approach was a parallel education system funded by NGOs and donors, which led to a convoluted system and accusations of corruption. With aid cuts, there may now be more impetus to properly accommodate refugees into local public education systems.
In doing so, there is now greater consideration about special educational needs and language programmes for refugees. Mohammed Hammoud from the Centre for Lebanese Studies highlighted Australia as a contrast to Lebanon. Australia has also accommodated large numbers of Syrians, but incorporated them into state education, including bespoke language training. This practice approves there is a need for coordinated efforts to support refugees at a government level. Doing so requires international cooperation around these issues.
Digital technology has great potential for facilitating the cooperation required. The increasing ubiquity of the internet and social media allows for collaborative education across different countries. Online education programmes have allowed internally and externally displace Afghan women to continue their education in safety. Such programmes include the entirely digital American University of Afghanistan and the University of Cambridge’s own mentoring scheme. However, the limitations of digital access were also highlighted, particularly among refugees lacking technological skills and resources.
Broadening the knowledge base
But to properly facilitate this international cooperation, there is a need to rethink the global imbalances in academic research. Cyrine Saab, from the Centre for Lebanese Studies, highlighted that research on refugees is currently concentrated in Global North institutions and led by people from those countries. This is even the case in institutes designed to focus on the Global South. To properly reshape global education, speakers advocated for more research to be carried out by researchers in Global South countries, and to draw from local forms of knowledge.
Freya Perry from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, also emphasised the need for knowledge exchange. This would involve institutions such as Cambridge collaborating with partner institutions in the Global South, to research subjects such as displacement. Such exchange would help build knowledge reserves around the world.
But knowledge exchange also requires this knowledge to be made accessible. Jee Rubin, Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Sussex, emphasised the need to consider structural inequalities in the Global South. In response, Professor Mónica Moreno Figueroa, from the Department of Sociology, presented the university’s Global Racisms Institute for Social Transformation (GRIST), which is researching structural discrimination in different countries.
Alternatives to aid
More broadly, there is now a need to rethink the role of aid in the Global South. Recent aid cuts by the USA and UK have been politically charged, with a view to ‘putting our country first’. But speakers argued that they reflected a dependence on Global North governments, foreign NGOs and rich individuals for aid provision. This often had the effect of marginalising grassroots organisations or forcing them to restructure.
Gerawork Gisaw, Research Fellow at Columbia Global Nairobi, provided his experience working with foreign NGOs at Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. He recounted the disproportionate influence these NGOs had over managing the camp, sometimes suppressing research into alternative strategies. Faiza Hassan, from the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) described the current situation as a chance to “question the system we inherited” and “fundamentally reimagine our roles and responsibilities”.
Others discussed the potential for grassroots aid provision in conflict zones. Amy Fallon from UNHCR discussed how involving refugees themselves in the creation of support programs can empower communities and reduce dependency on external aid. There is also the opportunity to rethink issues such as government corruption, debt, and austerity.
Academic responsibilities
Arguably the most provocative discussions focused on the complicity of Western academia in global conflicts, particularly regarding Gaza. Several speakers discussed what they saw as universities in the US censoring pro-Palestinian protests in response to external pressures, including from governmental donors.
At the same time, differences in organisation of UK universities give academics more leeway in discussing these issues, and they need to embrace that opportunity. Pauline Rose, from the Department of Education, said “some of us academics are seen as troublemakers. But that can be a badge of honour; we should be making trouble!”
The conference also launched ‘Education in Times of War: An Act of Life’, a book produced in partnership with the Arabic education platform Manhajiyyat. The book features voices of educators in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon, who teach, comfort, and resist amid one of the most brutal conflicts of our time. It challenges the sanitized language of “education in crisis”, by foregrounding raw testimonies of teachers who have become healers, chroniclers, and architects of hope in the rubble of war.
Going forward
Among the myriad speakers and discussion points of this year’s Refugee Week conference, some key points emerged. These included a need to move away from foreign aid, more involvement from Global South institutions, and more willingness from Global North institutions to support them.
“Humanitarianism is thought to be apolitical,” said Shuayb. “But it isn’t!”
Dr Basaran concluded with a powerful appeal for institutions to extend their role beyond supporting forcibly displaced students with scholarships, an important but insufficient step. She argued that it fails to address the deeper challenges of knowledge production and the need to amplify scholarship and voices of the forcibly displaced. She also emphasized the importance of supporting higher education institutions in countries in conflict and war.