Asylum seekers in Israel
Photo: Roee Idan
Asylum seekers take classes in free online university
University of the People starts accepting highly-motivated refugees who seek a better future for themselves, studying either computer science and business administration.
When Jamal Khamill’s village in southern Sudan was destroyed in 2006, he thought his educational future had also been ransacked. One of ten children, Khamill lived with his parents and siblings in a refugee camp for years. He says that he saw he had no future there, and in 2012, he infiltrated illegally into Israel through the Sinai desert.
Caught and jailed for two months in Israel, he then made his way to Tel Aviv. Earlier this month, Khamill began studying in a two-year associate’s degree program in computer science at University of the People.
“I can’t stay away from my country forever,” Khamill told The Media Line. “I don’t want to go back with an empty mind. I want to take some skills back with me and be able to help my people.”
Khamill was one of 25 African asylum seekers who received a full scholarship to University of the People, which describes itself as the world’s “first and only non-profit tuition-free online accredited university.” Founded in 2009, it received accreditation in 2013 from the Distance Education and Training Council (DETC) Accrediting Commission, and graduated its first class that year. Its headquarters are in Pasadena, California, and most of its 3,000 professors, as well as its president and provost, are volunteers. Students come from 151 countries and interact in online forums. There are currently only two degrees offered – computer science and business administration. While tuition is free, students are asked to pay $100 per exam. In many cases, however, even this fee is covered by scholarships.
The move to admit refugees to the University of the People is starting as a pilot project in Israel, where about 48,000 asylum seekers, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan, live. Almost all of them entered the country illegally via the Sinai desert and have spent time in Israeli jails. Israel has recognized very few claims for asylum, but has given many of the refugees a quasi-legal status. This year, 25 refugees in Israel began studying for a degree, and another 300 have begun the application process.
“We welcome anyone who needs our services and refugees need it the most,” Shai Reshef, the founder and president of the university, told The Media Line. “They were forced to leave their houses and the only way for them to gain back their future is through education.”
He says the students are highly motivated and more than 85 percent complete all of the coursework, unlike online courses offered by universities like Stanford where thousands of students sign up but few finish. In those cases, said Reshef, students are taking the courses for enrichment – in this case it is for their first degree.
According to United Nations figures, there are more than 50 million refugees worldwide today, the largest number since World War II. If the project in Israel succeeds, Reshef would like to expand to enroll refugees from the ongoing Syria conflict as well as from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Reshef says the idea of admitting refugees came after the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, when he committed the university to accepting 250 students. It teamed up with NGOs who built several study centers for these Haitian refugees, who were living in camps. The students would come to the center to study four hours a day, have a hot lunch and then go back to the tents. Many of these students are set to graduate this year.
Refugees however, face unique issues in pursuing higher education. It is often difficult to prove that they have graduated high school, as they don’t have records with them, and many records have been destroyed. In this case, the university is partnering with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which meets with the refugees and certifies their status as high school graduates.
“We want to see these refugees have their skills enhanced and we promote access to higher education,” Walpurga Englbrecht, the representative of the UNHCR office in Tel Aviv, told The Media Line. “If they achieve a university degree, they can take their skills with them to wherever they will be in ten years.”
Even those refugees who have graduated high school and have a good command of English find it difficult to master the material. Jamal Khamill attends a study group every Sunday night in Tel Aviv, with a volunteer tutor, who helps him with his assignments.
Students apply to the University of the People for a series of reasons.
“The fact that it was tuition-free was great and I really needed the flexibility,” Debbie Time, who graduated last year with a degree in business administration and lives in Florida, told The Media Line. “I did it all on my own and it wasn’t easy. When I finished, I had such a sense of accomplishment. It was one of the best things I did for myself.”
Time, 49, who works as an administrative assistant, attended college briefly right after high school, but soon dropped out. She said she always wanted to go back, but needing to work full time precluded that. At the University of the People, she said, the professors record the lectures, so she was able to view them at her convenience. At the same time, there was a strict schedule for handing in assignments and papers. She said the professors were accessible, usually responding quickly via email. She completed her degree while working full-time, and said she often studied until 2 or 3am to complete all of the assignments.
In some cases, students come to the University because there is no room in their home country. Every year 1.7 million students pass the entry exams for acceptance to university in Nigeria, Reshef said, but there is only space for 500,000, leaving 1.2 million potential students with no place to study.
Another asylum seeker in Israel, Tekle Zegergish, 28, from Eritrea, says he fled his home country because of the repressive regime, and the obligation to do military service. He now volunteers in Tel Aviv teaching computer skills to other Eritrean asylum seekers.
“I have started a two-year program in computer science,” he told The Media Line. “I would like to do a four-year degree but I don’t know where I will be in four years. At the same time, I am happy because this program is international and in English. It will be very helpful for my future.”
The university can be found at www.uopeople.edu
Article written by Linda Gradstein
Reprinted with permission from The Media Line
