The global humanitarian crisis has forcibly displaced at least 103 million people due to war, persecution, conflict, violence, or human rights violations.
Universities can be agents for change in the humanitarian crisis – from providing equitable access for students from a refugee background to protecting academic freedoms and at-risk scholars.
Dr Sally Baker, Dr Tebeje Molla, Dr Olga Oleinikova, Dr Asher Hirsch, and Amir Ali Jalali Farahani joined The Hon. Prof. Verity Firth AM about how universities can better advocate for human rights and freedoms of refugees.
THE HON. PROF. VERITY FIRTH: Hello, everybody. Thank you for joining us at today's event. We are just waiting for people to enter the virtual room. I will give it maybe 10, 20 seconds as people enter and then we'll kick it off. Alright. There's about 60 people in the room so let's commence. I would like to acknowledge, of course, that I'm on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. Gadigal land is the land on which the university is built and I'm at work today and I want to particularly pay respect to the Gadigal Elders for being the traditional custodians of knowledge for the land that this university is built on. I want to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the Country where everybody else is from and feel free to share where you're from in the Q&A box.
My name is Verity Firth. I'm the Pro ViceChancellor of Social Justice and Inclusion here at UTS. It's my absolute pleasure to be hosting today's event in the leadup to Refugee Week. We're joined today by a great lineup of speakers. We have Dr Sally Baker, Dr Tebeje Molla, Dr Olga Oleinikova, Dr Asher Hirsch and Amir Ali Jalali Farahani, and I'll introduce each of them properly in just a moment.
The global humanitarian crisis is staggering. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that last year saw at least 103 million people forcibly displaced due to war, persecution, conflict, violence or human rights violations. This year's Refugee Week is focused on the theme 'Finding Freedom' freedom to live without the fear of war, to have your basic human rights upheld, to live in safety and without the fear of persecution. Freedom should not be an ask. It should be a way of life.
Universities have a role to play in the humanitarian crisis. They can be agents for change from providing equitable access to higher education to refugee students, advocating for equitable refugee laws and policies, to protecting academic freedoms and atrisk scholars. I'm looking forward to hearing from each of today's panelists about how they see universities being able to contribute. So it is my pleasure to now introduce each of them to you.
So firstly, Dr Sally Baker is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education UNSW. Sally's teaching and research interests centre on language, literacies, transition and equity in higher education for culturally and linguistically diverse students and refugee students. Sally is the CoChair of the National Refugee Education Special Interest Group for students from refugee backgrounds, supported by the Refugee Council of Australia. Welcome, Sally.
Dr Tebeje Molla is a Senior Lecturer and Australian Research Council Future Fellow in the School of Education at Deakin University. His research focuses on inequality and policy responses in education. He recently completed Discovery Early Career Researcher Award project, investigating the educational attainment of African heritage youth from refugee backgrounds. Welcome, Tebeje.
Amir Ali Jalali Farahani is a finalyear Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) and Medical Science student. He comes from a refugee background and is a UTS Humanitarian Scholarship recipient. Amir is driven to make a positive impact in his chosen field and, in his spare time, enjoys basketball and photography. Welcome, Amir.
Dr Olga Oleinikova is a Senior Lecturer and Director of the Social Impact Technologies and Democracy Research Hub in the School of Communication here at UTS. She is named among Forbes Top 40 Global Ukrainians and Forbes 30 Under 30 in Asia. Her recent projects include a report on the settlement of Ukrainian war refugees in Australia and their challenges working with settlement services and barriers to integration. Welcome, Olga.
Last but not least, Dr Asher Hirsch is a Senior Policy Officer with the Refugee Council of Australia, the national peak body for refugees and the organisations and individuals who support them. His work involves research, policy development and advocacy on national and international issues impacting refugee communities. Asher is also a Lecturer at Monash University in public law, human rights and refugee law. Welcome, Asher.
So I'm going to begin today with actually a question for each of you that I'll just give you to answer in turn and we'll start with you, Asher and we will work our way around. Can each of you share some insight into how universities currently respond to humanitarian crises?
DR ASHER HIRSCH: Thank you very much. Look, I think one thing that universities have been doing for a number of years, which is really welcome, is providing scholarships to people seeking asylum and refugees on temporary visas, and I know UTS has done so, with even some of their recipients here today, and this was really heartening to see. A few years ago, with the reintroduction of temporary protection visas, refugees weren't able to access higher education. They had to pay high level of international fees. They weren't able to get loans. But universities really did step up and provide access to classes and scholarships and even additional support. And that was very welcome and for many people, life changing. So I think that's the one thing I want to say. Thank you to all the universities for doing that.
I also think a lot of the universities do invest a lot of time and resources into equity programs, into ensuring support for disadvantaged students, for a whole range of other support services and I think that also needs to be acknowledged and welcomed as well.
THE HON. PROF. VERITY FIRTH: Thank you. Olga?
DR OLGA OLEINIKOVA: Yes, so I agree completely with Asher. I will just point out that I saw first of all, I'll say that I never was working on the topic of refugee before Ukraine ended up in this trouble. I never thought that the topic of refugee would be a topic of my family and my friends. So because I'm inside UTS, I closely followed how universities were supporting what is happening with Ukrainians, and, yes, the scholarships that Asher mentioned, that's lifesaving for many students who want to come here on humanitarian visas and do a degree. But also actually another program which exists globally I think among universities is scholarsatrisk program, and I think UTS and other unis are part of it too, when they take esteemed scholars not students but they give employment to scholars from the countries who are in war conditions or under maybe ecological disaster who are refugees for any reasons.
I know a couple of very good success stories, by the way. Typically it's very hard for people who are in their midcareer, let's say, or professors, let's say from Ukraine or from other countries, who don't speak English very well, let's say, for them to integrate, get a job let's say in Australia for three months or for some contract time. It's hard. There's a lot of challenges there. But I have learned actually there were a couple of very great success stories of Ukrainian Professors I know one Ukrainian Professor from Kharkiv and she's in her 60s, so not a young not very shapeable at that age, let's put it this way, and she managed to...(audio lost)... Sydney in mathematics. So she teaches mathematics and coding as well. And now she's got a permanent position. So these programs can transform actually into permanent positions for scholars globally. So I know this success story.
So universities also create such webinars as this one for refugees where we can talk about things of importance for people who are refugees themselves and for agents, stakeholders in this area. So this is a very brief note from myself.
THE HON. PROF. VERITY FIRTH: Thanks, Olga. What about you, Amir? What are the universities currently doing to respond to the humanitarian crisis?
AMIR ALI JALALI FARAHANI: Yes, I'll touch upon what Asher was saying as well. UTS obviously offers the Humanitarian Scholarship program, which actually goes beyond financial assistance. So they provide the (inaudible) support services to mitigate the barriers and promote success for students such as myself, and that can be in the form of either (inaudible), educational, living costs or either support and transitional onboarding, whether they be from the UTS college or straight from high school.
THE HON. PROF. VERITY FIRTH: Yes. Thank you. And Tebeje?
DR TEBEJE MOLLA: Thank you again. I guess starting with the theme itself, I really found the 'Finding Freedom' as a very powerful theme. As you know, freedom is not limited to the absence of suffering or persecution. Freedom is also about having the opportunity to achieve one's aim. Freedom is also about having the opportunity to make decisions for one's self. So in that sense, it's really a powerful theme and I'm really happy that you picked that up and created this opportunity for us.
What are universities doing? I think universities are trying to do their best most of the universities I would say, especially in Australia to meet that demand. But we can divide the response of universities to the humanitarian crisis into three major categories. One can be the most common one: giving opportunities. It can be through special consideration at admission level or financial support. That's the main and the most common one. I think over 80% of Australian universities offer that kind of assistance in one form or another.
The second category of engagement can be research and training. They train the next generation humanitarian leaders. They also generate knowledge on the causes and consequences and as well as solutions for the humanitarian crisis. So, for example, I know that globally, the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative is wellknown in this space. Within in Australia, here at Deakin, we have the Centre For Humanitarian Leadership. That kind of work is really important.
The third category of engagement or response to the humanitarian crisis can be advocacy. University staff and students are doing their best to address the crisis. In this case, for example, in the UK, the Universities of (inaudible), staff and students are working together to create space for refugees, forcibly displayed people. It can be students as well as scholars. So we can see those three main categories of responses but where are we here in Australia? I think I'm sure we will discuss those themes later on and I'll stop there. Thanks.
THE HON. PROF. VERITY FIRTH: Yes, and, in fact, Sally, I'm going to come to you to talk to you specifically about your research in this space and, Tebeje, I know you research as well, so both of you research issues around university systems and their impact on people from refugee backgrounds to access and succeed in higher education. I know you've started, Tebeje Sally, do you want to talk a bit about what your research shows?
DR SALLY BAKER: Sure. Thank you for the invitation. Just before I do that, I do want to mention one other things that universities do and can do and, as public goods, should do, which is to work with civil society organisations and NGOs like RCOA, but also there's the wonderful Refugee Action Support Program that the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation run, and Loshini Naidoo at Western Sydney has been very involved with that. The ASRC in Melbourne have partnered with the University of Melbourne, for example, to offer a PhD scholarship. So there's lots of examples.
What I will say, and what our research really clearly shows, though, is that this is very ad hoc. Some universities and a big shoutout to UTS are absolute very early adopters and very committed. Other universities are not quite as committed or at all committed. There are still universities across Australia that do not offer scholarships. While Asher is really obviously right to point to this being an incredible contribution, there's nowhere near enough scholarships to meet the needs of the many people who are locked out of education, higher education, and while the end of temporary protection and safe haven enterprise visas was obviously a massive moment of celebration for advocates earlier this year, there are still tens of thousands of people on bridging visas who will still face similar issues in terms of being locked out.
So what our research tells us and I am aware that I am the one that constantly bites the hands that feeds me as someone who works in the university, in the sector is that universities don't actually do enough and they don't respond to the needs of refugees often. They might capture people with lived experience of forced migration because they fit into another equity category if they have a permanent protection visa, and they might be able to offer a small number of scholarships, often limited by issues of cost, and I think there's been many conversations across the last sixplus years about whether there is an actual cost to the fee waiver component, so there is inconsistency across the sector. This and Tebeje will talk about this as well really comes down to the issue of the very broad umbrella categories for equity for universities to respond to through the higher education participation and partnership program. So refugees are not a named identified cohort. It's really then up to individual universities to be responsive, or what Sue Webb, Jane Wilkinson and Karen Dunwoodie call 'goarounds', like finding flexible ways of working around structures to be able to provide what we know very clearly is that there is a bespoke set of services, tailored services, that account for cultural, linguistic and racial marginalisation in our predominantly white, Anglo, monolingual Englishspeaking institutions.
So while I absolutely want to celebrate the great, great progress we've made, there are many issues that continue to create barriers that are structural, that do come from having a kind of reductive lens, and an imagined student that we build our support services around. We've done a really good job of opening access, but we haven't done a great job of supporting engagement and we definitely haven't done enough to help students move out of education and into employment. We know that refugees as a cohort, particularly first generation, have much lower post graduate outcomes and employment outcomes. So it's great to celebrate where we've got to but there's a lot more work to do.
THE HON. PROF. VERITY FIRTH: That's really interesting. Tebeje, is there anything that you want to add in relation to your research?
DR TEBEJE MOOLA: Sure. I think just to explain why universities are not supporting refugees to the extent that they need to, it's that what I did was I was explored refugee education across four core spaces. The first one is a global space, the global policy space mainly focussing on the UN, and Australia is a signatory to the major refugee frameworks and initiated this, including the Refugee Convention and the New York Declaration. In those two major initiatives, education is an important element. Nation states agreed to provide education for refugees and, therefore, Australia agreed to that.
Then the second policy space is at a national level. At the national level, the refugees are recognised as specific groups, equity groups. For example, you can take the Multicultural Statement, you can take the Multicultural Access and Equity Guide, you can take the National Education Declaration. Across all those national policy spaces, refugees are recognised as specific groups and governments are committed to supporting them.
Then go to the third policy space. That is the higher education sector. That's where they are missing. At the sector level, take any equity initiative within the higher education sector, including the HEPPP and the JobReady graduate, the latest one, refugees are invisible.
Then going to the fourth policy space, that is the institutional context. Universities are doing some universities are doing better than others. Nevertheless, they are doing something. But why they are not doing enough? Because policy invisibility means no funding. No funding means university cannot provide ongoing targeted support because it's costly. It's resourceintensive. So that policy invisibility is really a serious issue at the sector level that we need to work on.
THE HON. PROF. VERITY FIRTH: That's really interesting. I'm going to come back to you on this issue of policy invisibility and some of the current initiatives that the new government is exploring. So I'll loop back there. But first I'm going to come to you, Amir. What has it been like, what has your experience been navigating the Australian university system, and from your point of view, how can universities better support students from refugee backgrounds?
AMIR ALI JALALI FARAHANI: Well, first of all, I want to say that I'm privileged to be a recipient of the Humanitarian Scholarship at UTS, and due to this program, my experience at an Australian university has been positive. So coming from high school straight to university and coming from a refugee and asylum seeker background, I thought that I would never have a space at university, that there would be no seat for me. So being part of this program, it provided me with the guidance and navigating system that I actually needed to access those services because I know there are services available but maybe not everyone knows about them and doesn't know how to access them.
So the UTS Humanitarian Scholarship program actually provided me with the guidance in order for me to access those. And with the extensive support that goes beyond just covering my fees, I have other support such as being able to focus on how to go to an interview for a job as a student who never experienced such a thing. It's a real privilege for me to look at this and how this can improve my career as well. So these are the kinds of services that are such a small factor but contribute to the bigger picture as I'm moving as a student towards the end of my degree and towards my professional career.
And to better support students from refugee backgrounds, the university should focus on providing guidance and fostering an inclusive environment, where students feel valued and welcome to be within that environment. So programs like the Humanitarian Scholarship program obviously offer the assistance with tuition fees, the transition support and mentoring, and even opportunities with paid internship programs where most of the international students or people from a refugee background are struggling to find at the moment, which is an internship and pretty much that door to enter their professional careers.
So by expanding these initiatives across all Australian universities, more students from the same background as me will have the opportunity to access these valuable resources and overcome the barriers that they are facing at the moment.
THE HON. PROF. VERITY FIRTH: That's a really good point. So I'm now going to point about this concept of policy invisibility. One of the things that the Federal Minister for Immigration has been raising as a possibility is Australia establishing refugee education migration pathways. There's no commitment yet but they're beginning to explore the idea. And so I might come to Sally first because I know she knows a lot about this subject, but to give people a sense on the Zoom, internationally refugee education migration pathways share responsibility between the education sector and the Government. A good example is Canada's Student Refugee Program supports refugee students through active partnerships with over 100 Canadian universities and colleges. It's part of your actual pathway to Canada, you receive one of these education pathways. , so, Sally, coming to you first, how do you think this could work in Australia? How can the Australian Government, universities and civil society work together to implement a similar type of program?
DR SALLY BAKER: Thank you, Verity. What a thrill to be able to get to this point and talk about this as being an option that Australia is willing to consider and hopefully embrace. I mean, it's a win/win, the idea of an education migration pathway. It gives universities a real bespoke opportunity to create, to cocreate with government, cocreate with civil society and, importantly, harness all of the goodwill that we know exists on every campus, with students and staff and alumni, to be able to come together and create a durable situation, a new durable solution. It fits in within the community sponsorship space, and I am sure Asher can speak to this a bit more expertly than I can, but it's an important piece of sharing responsibility. It's about opening new pathways, so it really does need to be additional to the existing humanitarian quota. And it offers like the skilled labour refugee mobility pilot that comes through a skilled migration pathway, it's an additional stream of humanitarian intake that's what we hope that will help to respond I mean, it's not going to respond to that huge crisis that you mentioned at the beginning, Verity, but it's going to do something important and it's going to be able to give us a way of leveraging what we know is lots of energy, lots of goodwill and really kind of meaningfully put it into a structure that will help to support students through.
I think in Australia we would benefit from following the Canadian model, which means using a humanitarian visa pathway, which then means that people with permanent protection have immediate access to HECS and to a Commonwealthsupported place. It means that universities won't be quite so worried about having to fee waive an entire degree, which we know is a challenge for the sector and the sector hasn't been it hasn't emerged unscathed from COVID financially, so it's not putting additional financial risk or giving that to the university sector, and it really gives students and staff a way of contributing either its donations or time and energy, and helping to create that wraparound support that Amir just talked to. UTS do a really good job of this. Not all universities do, and as I said, not all universities offer a scholarship at all. So by giving community groups or community sponsor groups an opportunity and a kind of structure, with training and with clear guidelines to be able to support people as they come in, and hopefully an expectation that any beneficiary of that pathway will then join that local university student group, we're offering a durable solution. It's not a quick pilot. It's an ongoing program. And in Canada, their program has lasted for over 40 years. Amazing proof of concept, and it's also worth noting that there are now 26 countries offering educational migration pathways. 33 pathways across the globe, and there's nothing at the moment certainly in the big resettlement countries of the Asia Pacific, so it's a really important opportunity and an exciting opportunity for Australia to really contribute meaningfully to the kind of crisis that exists in our region, as well as the global piece.
THE HON. PROF. VERITY FIRTH: Yes. Very exciting if it can happen. Asher, did you want to add to that?
DR ASHER HIRSCH: I think what Sally said was that this kind of pathway is a complementary pathway, and when we say "complementary", it means it sits alongside and is in addition to the existing humanitarian program. This is a really exciting way for Australia to bring other refugees into the country who might have other things to contribute, whether it's a skilled pathway to contribute existing skills, or a student pathway for those who are wanting to study, and then use that education to benefit Australia as well.
Where the existing regular humanitarian program should be set aside for those who are most vulnerable, those who need safety in Australia. Complementary pathways can be ways that we can actually expand the number of people who are resettled. Out of the millions of refugees, less than 100,000 people get resettled every year. Complementary pathways is trying to expand that by having a bit of a win/win process. It's in addition to the humanitarian program, so it's a win for refugees, but it's a win for the countries where they get resettled because they bring skills and expertise and contribute to the economy as well.
THE HON. PROF. VERITY FIRTH: Does anyone else want to comment specifically on education, migration pathways? Tebeje?
DR TEBEJE MOLLA: Yes, just to add on the Canadian model, bringing them here is good but widening the pathways requires more work as well. But I think I have found the German experience is flawed as well. As you know, following the 2015/16 mass level of refugees, opportunities were available for refugees to go to university, but what they discovered was just by putting opportunities out there, you can't attract, bring students. You need to work further. So the Federal Government at that point intervened to make that possible. One they did was they funded an independent organisation called Uni Assist. What that organisation did was they checked qualifications, they checked migration documentations, and then explored pathways for those new arrivals. That was one.
The second intervention they did was they funded pre academic programs in colleges, not at university level, so that students can study and improve their subjectspecific knowledge and language proficiency at a college level. Take it as TAFE here. So students would stay there for a couple of years, study language, study their subject area, and then after a couple of years, transition to university.
That was the second one. The third intervention was the Government again the Federal Government allocated money for universities to use that money for ongoing support for those refugee students. So, yes, opportunities are important, but taking advantage of that opportunity requires extra. So we need to take that into account as well. Thank you.
THE HON. PROF. VERITY FIRTH: So, Olga, if there is noone else who wants to just expand on that, I might come to you, Olga. Russia's invasion of the Ukraine has left 17.6 million people requiring humanitarian assistance and approximately 40% of Ukraine's population are in need of humanitarian assistance and protection. Recently you and colleagues from Curtin University and also University of Sydney and Deakin produced an industry report covering the settlement of Ukrainian war refugees in Australia. Can you tell us about your findings?
DR OLGA OLEINIKOVA: Yes, Verity. Thank you for this question. So this report was the product of a pilot study, which was with four universities together in preparation for a linkage grant. So for those who know, they know what that is. Linkage grants, right. So, of course, some of the team members are Ukrainians, like myself. So I was born in Ukraine, so I'm really connected. It's not just an academic interest, but personally at the heart of this topic. We looked specifically at actually the role of language in the agency, so, like, if they know English, how it enables agency. If they don't know, how it disables it, to put it very simply in a way. And we looked at how settlement services were providing those services, given the specific agency level and language skills level basically.
What we found out it was a pilot study. We did research in New South Wales and in Perth, which is very interesting in WA, right. So we talk a lot about refugees framework, support, in New South Wales and in Victoria, and in Queensland as well, but Perth, in Western Australia, I don't think they had state support in the programs that they do for various reasons, because not that many refugees actually arrive to Western Australia. Most of them come to New South Wales. So for us it was interesting to see how settlement services are dealing with volumes here in New South Wales, specifically with Ukrainians, and in WA, to compare two different places with different policies, right.
What we found out and we did focus groups. We finished that in December last year. Mostly all of the war migrants or refugees from Ukraine were here around six months or five months, so it's actually quite early on to determine how they integrate, how successful they are and so on, but it's a very good pinpoint to understand how settlement services help in the early days of migration. And there's not much research, by the way, on the early stages of migration of what settlement services do and how they are accessed.
So what we found, briefly, is there are a lot of gaps there, of course. First of all, I think as Sally mentioned in the beginning, in general, countries not just Australia probably but other countries are not well prepared for what we call urgent humanitarian migrants. Emergency we call them. Emergency humanitarian migrants. The waves that emerge after a crisis or a war breakout or something sudden, which probably is framed and is approached policywise differently, which is interesting. Why would you approach something maybe ongoing in some other countries with humanitarian programs, but this urgency these humanitarian migrants, they're treated differently.
We see these temporary protection visas, which were cancelled. You know, Ukraine actually took part in just half a year in this. They announced the humanitarian temporary protection program for Ukrainians in May, April, and they closed it in July. Like, it was really very quick for us. It was super quick. And July 2022, and what, we are almost a year since they closed it, right, and we are still in war.
So there were a lot of issues with this approach of Australia, framing us I mean, Ukrainians, not myself, but other Ukrainians wouldn't have humanitarian temporary protection scenarios or pathways because Ukrainians were not eligible for many services, not as a regular humanitarian migrant. For example, for obligations for Centrelink, there is a special I know there's are special programs in Australia that helps with Centrelink arrangements for various groups and they have a direct pathway. They have even officers who work in Centrelink dedicated to, let's say, supporting Afghani refugees and Syrian refugees and so on. They are treated as regular Australians in their scheme, which is very strange. And so settlement services received a lot of barriers in provision of the services because of government frameworks which did not exist. They could not fit Ukrainians within these categories, which creates a barrier.
To be honest, most of the participants from the focus groups, they said that, of course, the support was amazing. People met them at the airport, you know (inaudible) Red Cross and many other organisations, they did a really good job in providing this first early settlement support, giving them housing and for 20 days for 28 days I know Ukrainians lived in hotels, in nice places. They had a full fridge of products. They were getting a SIM card, so it was really good support. After that, everyone noted that after three months, this support ventures down. It's hard to get anything from settlement services or from anyone else because they really tried to, I think, support people in the first six months after their arrival. Other programs that exist take refugees or humanitarian entrants after six months or 12 months, the other program that exists. So we focused on that settlement service early days of provision of services.
Also it was interesting that Ukrainian migrants... (audio is lost)...not just the Ukrainians but we also interviewed people who supported Ukrainians. And what we found out can you hear me? So what we found out is that as well Ukrainians, they said that they were quite digitally literate, they could support themselves. They also didn't feel any cultural shock because I think Ukraine, we're mostly well travelled, you know, European, we've travelled here and there, we're exposed to democratic values, democratic setups in the countries and systems. So for the majority of Ukrainian refugees, there's no cultural shock being here.
But language barrier was the main cause of all the problems. And pretty much I think UTS Verity would know, those students who applied for because UTS launched special places for Ukrainians for Humanitarian Scholarships. They gave I think three places or something this year. So you would know that language would be a kind of a big barrier. Culturally we're not that different. We are very digitally literate and so on. But language would be an issue for many people, and that's the core barrier for Ukrainians to actually get along with things. But I can talk more but I think let's leave it at that point.
THE HON. PROF. VERITY FIRTH: That's really rich and it gives you an example I'm coming to you now, Asher, because when you hear Olga work through the industry report that she did alongside these other universities, giving this really rich and detailed experience of Ukrainian refugees in Australia, how does the work of your organisation, the Refugee Council, intersect with the research that's being carried out in universities and does it help in terms of your advocacy to the Federal Government? Does it help to change Australia's Federal policies?
DR ASHER HIRSCH: Yes, so at the Refugee Council we work alongside a lot of academics who are researching and advocating in this area across a whole range of areas of policy: international policy, asylum policy, settlement support, like Olga was talking about. Their work really does inform advocacy in our research and we often rely on academic research to strengthen our advocacy. And also working alongside experts, so often we might do joint submissions with experts who are researching in this area, joint reports or even have them join with us in different events and the like as well.
So I think I feel like our job is often to connect some of the research into practical policy outcomes and advocacy. Does it always get taken up by government? Not always. But I think that really strengthens our advocacy and we can have some really detailed and considered research from experts behind us.
THE HON. PROF. VERITY FIRTH: Coming to government with a strong evidence base already never hurts, right?
DR ASHER HIRSCH: That's right.
THE HON. PROF. VERITY FIRTH: My next question and then I'll move to the audience questions, and I'm come to you first, Sally, on this one. Do you think universities can play a bigger role in challenging stigmas or influencing public perception around people who've been forcibly displaced?
DR SALLY BAKER: 120% yes, of course, I do think that universities actually have an incredibly important role, not least because as academics, for example, we have our own area of expertise and we can speak within our lane, so we've got academic freedom that protects us to be able to speak truth to power, for example. I think that universities I think this does go to a couple of the questions in the Q&A. I think universities could do a lot more, a lot, lot more, when it comes to challenging some of the more divisive well, some of the divisive discourses that circulate around issues of forced migration and seeking refuge, and I'm particularly kind of enthused by the idea that universities can do more to shift employer perceptions. Universities are more than pipelines but, for want of a metaphor, that will do. We push people into careers, so we have Amir who will work with engineering, so universities have got a direct relationship with Engineering Australia, for example, and can do a lot more to both facilitate employment opportunities and post graduate opportunities for students who are currently studying with us to think about industry partnerships, for example, I'm going to say "when" the education migration pathway is developed, that that's a key kind of potential facet.
There's a lot that universities can do as key brokers between civil society, employers, peak bodies, accreditation agencies. One thing we haven't mentioned, which is absolutely ginormous, is the issue with qualifications recognition in Australia. It is actually a challenge for all migrants but it's particularly acutely difficult when you are forced to flee and you don't stop to pick up your university certificate. So universities could actually play a much, much, much more involved role in supporting government, supporting, for example, areas like Department of Home Affairs but also working with our Minister for Education to think about how we might be able to support that capacity.
We certainly have a lot of knowledge now. We're 10 years minimum 10 years into what's been a pretty significant proliferation of interest in refugee education and obviously settlement and associated connected pieces. So we need to leverage off that. But what's really significant I think is apparent across all of the facets of forced migration, it's that we work in silos. You can't talk about education without thinking about health and thinking about housing. I mean, housing is the number one concern if we're thinking about and I know it's a big piece and the RCOA were tweeting today about pushes to facilitate the housing cost pressure on our most financially precarious community members and, in particular, people seeking asylum, who are on very small amounts of money, if anything at all, these things need to be considered together. So I think universities as well in fora like these where universities do have a licence to bring people together, working with obviously wonderful colleagues from RCOA and other organisations, to have some joinedup conversations, Verity. I think that's next. We know enough about well, we could know more but we do not a lot about these individual parts. We need to now think about how they crisscross, and I guess that kind of Aligns with the work that RCOA does in terms of having eyes across the whole space. So, yes, more please.
THE HON. PROF. VERITY FIRTH: Does anyone else want to answer that question around what more Tebeje?
DR TEBEJE MOLLA: Yes. I'm just reflecting on that. Last year, over Christmas, I had the opportunity to read a book by one of my favourite sociologists, Raewyn Connell. The title of that book is 'The Good University'. In that book, Connell explains what is a good university and she identified five key features of a good university. A good university is democratic. A good university is engaged. A good university is creative, truthful and sustainable. I think for this conversation, we can use only one, and that is engaged. A good university is an engaged university, which is present, fully present, to the society that supports it. So, in other words, we need really to work hard to make sure that the universities recognise their dual identity, dual role. They are not just economic missionaries. They are also social agents. They need to be responsible and responsive to the problems that are emerging in our society.
So when we see it from that perspective, of course, universities have a role to play in terms of responding to humanitarian crisis, engaging with other crises as well environmental crisis, social crisis, all sorts of crisis. Most importantly, as Connell said, an engaged university doesn't shy away from controversy. It doesn't shy away from difficult and challenging issues. I know, for example, just take the issue of racism in this country. Deakin University is running with that. What is the role of university in creating a more tolerant and more just and more democratic society? What's the role of the university? So yes, the university needs to be engaged. That should be their identity. That's what I want to say. Thanks.
THE HON. PROF. VERITY FIRTH: Yes, I agree very much with that. OK. So I might come to some of the questions from the audience, and the first one: people don't seem to be voting. I don't know if we've not turned it on or whether people are just typing in their own, but on the issue that Sally, and the fact that you have just raised now too, Tebeje, the idea of having a more holistic response to the humanitarian crisis, integrating the siloed policy areas of health, education, housing and so forth. I come to the question from Nerissa De Villa, who asks: what are the funding sources for the refugee migration education pathways? Even as I was thinking about that, I was thinking there's a lot of support services that need to go around an education migration pathway, including housing, right? Is the funding in other countries purely through government funding or do the universities come to the table or are there industry partnerships? Sally, do you want to tell us a bit about the funding sources for these sorts of pathways? And then anyone else who wants to add, put your hand up and I'll come to you next.
DR SALLY BAKER: And I absolutely need to be clear for the record that this is not a commitment of anything and that these are the questions in the chat are great and there is a lot more work to do. There's a process of codesign to come next. What happens in Canada, if we just take Canada as a model quickly, is there's a levy in what's equivalent to our SAF, the student amenities fee, where students in Canada can donate 1% and they can choose which charity it goes to. So that's one form of fundraising. Other forms would be through staff giving, for example; through philanthropy.
My view, and it is my view, is there needs to be a cost sharing between government, who will be committing obviously to pay for the Asher can help me out on the language here but the cost of Medicare and Centrelink and the ordinary kind of costs of bringing in new humanitarian migrants. Universities will need to I think have assigned things. Now, in my view and I don't want to commit to this, and this is just my view that would perhaps be a foundation program where there was some language and preparation for study before entering into an undergraduate program. Every single university has a version of this. Often they sit in a college. I think an ELICOS pathway is probably a possibility. We also have a wonderful enabling space in our Australian sector that is actually under it's not known enough and does excellent work in the equity space and as a permanent protection holder so a refugee with a permanent protection visa, they access any of these fora. I think TAFE is incredibly important as well, as Tebeje mentioned. So we are kind of working around this being a tertiary education refugee pathway that it's not higher education specific. TAFE has a very specific role with vocations but it also has a preparatory role to play as well. So there's lots of moving parts.
In terms of an Australian version, I think it needs to be therefore shared between the Commonwealth between the university, maybe the sector or maybe there's the mechanism to help to share some philanthropic funds for example between universities but universities also need to commit maybe a program of preparation and maybe some shortterm accommodation, subsidised accommodation, definitely stipends. We know that scholarships and bursaries can make an enormous difference, particularly for things like buying laptops, digital infrastructure, WiFi access, textbooks, lab coats, for example, depending on the course. And then the civil society or the student or university sponsored group component, which would be from philanthropic donations and other donations and looking towards perhaps something that creates a longer term sustainable income stream.
So I think it's really very much a shared piece. Now, in other countries, it's often for a study pathway and it then comes through often faithbased university ad hoc funding. It's not sustainable that way and so it's important for Australia that we start with the ambition of looking to the sector and we look through humanitarian, not study visas. But everything is up for grabs at the moment and nothing and I must be clear nothing is being committed to by the Federal Government. These are just ideas, and there will be a process of codesign and there will definitely be a process of consultation as well. So if you're interested and you want to just stay involved then please do get in contact with RESIG. I'll pop a link to RESIG in the chat.
THE HON. PROF. VERITY FIRTH: That's great. Because like anything that you need to actually provide advocacy and support in the community so that the Government actually does what they're looking at. I mean, we need to provide the support if that's what we want to see. Oh, well, and I now have a lovely question from a student, Alina: "As a student, how can I contribute?". Who wants to answer this question first? Amir, do you want to talk about as a student how can students contribute to this issue?
AMIR ALI JALALI FARAHANI: Yes. So I believe it's how can you take it out of university and take it to the public and take it to the society and make pretty much the people around you more informed about the barriers, the issues and the services that refugee students need. So that's pretty much what I've been doing as a student and trying my best to make sure everyone is aware, actually raising an awareness of what's happening around us, what are the struggles that I'm going through and what other are the struggles that other students are going through, and what are the services available and how are we able to help. I reckon that's the least we can do for students.
THE HON. PROF. VERITY FIRTH: Anyone else wants to talk about the role students can potentially play? That's alright. So I'm looking at the so Vincent asked a question which I know that Sally you've sort of answered already but I want to just tease a little bit of the detail. Vincent asks the question around recognition of overseas training and qualifications. You're absolutely right, it's a really difficult one and there's people who are arriving in this country who have already pretty much finished degrees or have degrees or qualifications that they simply cannot get recognition for in Australia. What can we do about this? What is the practical thing that universities can do in this space to help solve this issue?
DR SALLY BAKER: Well, I think it's about a partnership with accrediting bodies actually, if we're thinking about professions, and there was some traction on this in New South Wales a while ago and sadly it didn't move forward. But, for example, the accounting organisation, and forgive me if there's any accountants in the room, is it the CPA? It might not have been them so I won't name them, but they have a oneyear foundation program for migrants that helps to do some upskilling in terms of, for example, Australian tax law. It's a yearlong program and it could be adapted. There was some goodwill on offer. With all of these things, it's so dependent on a longer term view of things and crossing over different Departments. Unfortunately for many reasons it didn't go forward but it's a good idea to share responsibility that universities can leverage these conversations with professional organisations. What would a pathway look like for people who are newly arriving, whether they're coming through any of the pathways, who have a qualification that cannot be recognised because there isn't a document, et cetera, but there's a set of questions that we can ask that we can establish how much someone knows about a particular thing, whatever area it is. I'm going to kind of fall over if I start to talk about any disciplinespecific things but we must be able to develop processes that can establish what someone knows and then think about what might be a short version rather than and what I have seen is we've had, for example, nurses from, for example, an African country who've arrived in Australia. Their qualification is not recognised so they had to do AMEP, Adult Migrant English Program, a Cert III, an enabling course. They redid their Nursing degree and then they got caught by APRA because they didn't meet the English language requirements and they had I think probably 10plus efforts at trying to pass ILs. These are barriers that we could easily remove. They're barriers created by monolingualism and monoculturalism. They're just not acceptable. And universities have key leverage here. They might not be able to make Engineers Australia or APRA or other organisations change policy wholesale but they can start conversations about why we need to be more adaptive in these pieces. So I absolutely think qualifications are difficult. UNESCO do have a qualifications passport as well that Australia could buy into. That's developing as well but I'll pass over to Asher.
THE HON. PROF. VERITY FIRTH: Asher.
DR ASHER HIRSCH: I'll just say on the issue of recognition of previous experience and qualifications, it's an area where we're always very frustrated in and I think partly it's also because there's a vested interest in the industry bodies to tightly control who they accredit and to actually limit the number of professionals in that area so that there's more competition and more jobs for those who are already in the industry.
We just did a case study on dentistry, for example, where there's many Syrian refugees who have arrived who are dentists in their country, with years and years of experience, and there's also a medical crisis in Australia. We need more dentists and a whole range of other issues why we should be supporting them. But it's up to the dentists association to actually accredit them. They're providing a lot of barriers because it's in their interests to actually keep the number of dentists low. I think that goes for many industries. We should actually be taking the accreditation process out of the hands of the industry bodies and giving them to universities and government agencies that can independently assess people's suitability for those qualifications.
THE HON. PROF. VERITY FIRTH: That's a very interesting point, Asher. What will the AMA think of that? I don't know. I'm sorry I didn't get to all of the questions. I would say to Vito's question around what UTS is planning to do to help assist scholarship recipients, we do do, as Amir has already talked about we actually do have industry mentoring of our humanitarian scholars where we provide them with a mentor in industry to help them get through the internship processes. We work with an organisation called Career Seekers that provides internships, and that also answers another one of the questions around industry university partnerships for pathways to employment. But there is always more that we could be doing, so we will continue to work in this space. If you're interested in volunteering for our academic and industry mentoring programs with our humanitarian scholars, please get in contact. You can email me, in fact, on my UTS email.
But the last question I'm going to ask each of our panelists, to give us a brief response to before we close on time, is what do you hope will change in the future. So if you had suddenly had a magic wand and you could change something, just one thing, what would you hope could change in the future and I'll come to you first, Amir.
AMIR ALI JALALI FARAHANI: Well, I'll say first of all we know there's a limited number of scholarships available, so if they could expand that, that would be great. And as well as that, the organisations need to step up and start accepting people from refugee backgrounds. I know a lot of people are struggling to find internships. I was lucky enough to find a paid tertiary internship in the engineering industry but I know there's a lot of other people who are struggling. So these would be the two things that I would change.
THE HON. PROF. VERITY FIRTH: Thanks, Amir. Sally, what would you change?
DR SALLY BAKER: I would change the Higher Education Support Act and I would give access to people who have not yet had their refugee status determined access to HECS and I would have them I would have all people with forced migration or like experience as an identified equity category, and I've probably stolen Tebeje's. Sorry!
THE HON. PROF. VERITY FIRTH: Asher, you next. You will be next, Tebeje. Asher?
DR ASHER HIRSCH: One thing I didn't actually get to talk about which I think is really something universities can do and look into more is actually providing online university education to refugees overseas. We have the technology now. We've all been through COVID and Zoom, teaching online. Most universities have a cloud or online version of the whole degree. And it doesn't cost much more to just open that up to refugees in refugee camps in countries of asylum. They can then do the study, get the qualification and come on a migration pathway to another country as well.
THE HON. PROF. VERITY FIRTH: I think that's a brilliant idea, Asher, and I think there are UK universities already doing that. I'm pretty sure I've read about that. So it's something Australian universities could definitely pick up. Tebeje, you get the last because unfortunately I think Olga has dropped off due to connectivity issues so, Tebeje, you get the last word.
DR TEBEJE MOLLA: That's great. So I think a couple of years ago, Peter Shergold and colleagues submitted a media report to the Government with a message saying "Investing in refugees is investing in Australia". My wish is the Government listens to that message.
THE HON. PROF. VERITY FIRTH: Well, thank you, everyone. As usual, that was just a really wonderful panel. Thank you all for the work you do. Thank you, Amir, for being such a great student at UTS. And I'm not sure if you wish people a happy Refugee Week, but I do wish people a really contemplative Refugee Week that helps build the advocacy for fairness in this country, particularly fairness in relation to our refugees and humanitarian asylum seekers because Australia we're such a lucky country and we could be doing so much more. But it is exciting, as Sally said, that we may have the opportunity to introduce an education migration pathway, which I think is something that universities would fully support and it would be wonderful to have that happen. So fingers crossed. And feel free to write your local MP a letter of support to build a bit of a campaign for it.
Thank you again, everybody. The link will be shared with anyone who's registered so you will be able to share this webinar with others and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. Thanks very much.
If you are interested in hearing about future events, please contact events.socialjustice@uts.edu.au
The idea of an education migration pathway is a win-win. It gives universities a real bespoke opportunity to create, to co-create with government, co-create with civil society and, importantly, harness all of the goodwill that we know exists on every campus, with students and staff and alumni. – Dr Sally Baker
Policy invisibility means no funding. No funding means university cannot provide ongoing targeted support because it's resource intensive. Policy invisibility is a serious issue at the sector level that we need to work on. – Dr Tebeje Molla
Being part of the UTS Humanitarian Scholarship Program has been a privilege as it’s provided me with the guidance to navigate the university education system. By expanding these initiatives across all Australian universities, more students from the same background will have the opportunity to access these valuable resources and overcome barriers. – Amir Ali Jalali Farahani
The Refugee Council work alongside academics who are researching and advocating across a whole range of areas: international policy, asylum policy, settlement support. Their work informs advocacy and our job is to connect the research into practical policy outcomes. – Dr Asher Hirsch
Ukranian refugees weren’t eligible for many services as a regular humanitarian migrant. It’s been almost a year since Australia closed the humanitarian protection program, and we’re [Ukraine] still at war – Dr Olga Oleinikova
Speakers
Amir Ali Jalali Farahani is a final year Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) and Medical Science student. He comes from a refugee background and is a UTS Humanitarian Scholarship recipient. Amir is driven to make a positive impact in his chosen fields and in his spare time enjoys basketball and photography.
Dr Asher Hirsch is a Senior Policy Officer with the Refugee Council of Australia, the national peak body for refugees and the organisations and individuals who support them. His work involves research, policy development and advocacy on national and international issues impacting refugee communities. Asher is also a Lecturer at Monash University in public law, human rights, and refugee law.
Dr Olga Oleinikova is a Senior Lecturer and Director of the Social Impact Technologies and Democracy Research Hub in the School of Communication, UTS. She is named among Forbes Top 40 Global Ukrainians and Forbes 30 Under 30 in Asia. Her recent projects include a report on the settlement of Ukranian war refugees in Australia and their challenges working with settlement services and barriers to integration.
Dr Sally Baker is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education, UNSW. Sally’s teaching and research interests centre on language, literacies, transition and equity in higher education, for culturally and linguistically diverse students and refugee students. Sally is the Co-Chair of the national Refugee Education Special Interest Group for students from refugee backgrounds, supported by the Refugee Council of Australia.
Dr Tebeje Molla is a senior lecturer and Australian Research Council Future Fellow in the School of Education at Deakin University. His research focuses on inequality and policy responses in education. His recently completed Discovery Early Career Researcher Award project investigated the educational attainment of African heritage youth from refugee backgrounds.