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The Other 1 Percent - Refugee Students at Higher Education Institutions worldwide, 18-19 June, Berlin

The international conference “The Other 1 Percent - Refugee Students at Higher Education Institutions worldwide” will take place on 18-19 June 2019 at the German Federal Foreign Office (FFO) in Berlin, Germany.

The event aims to facilitate discussion of promising practices, needs and gaps in expanding access to higher education for refugees. The conference is co-hosted by the German Foreign Office, UNHCR and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

If the topic raises your interest please visit the conference homepage for all the necessary information. If you are interested to attend, please send as soon as possible an email to the contact details provided on the webpage.

BACKGROUND

The Global Compact on Refugees, adopted in December 2018, aims to improve international cooperation on refugee issues in order to improve their self-reliance and resilience. Higher education and access to the labour market play an important role in this. However, currently only about one percent of refugees currently have access to higher education worldwide. On the occasion of World Refugee Day 2019, this conference will shine a light on the need for expanded opportunities for refugees to access higher education and will allow for in-depth discussion of its dimensions and consequences with respect to the objectives of the Global Compact and the Sustainable DevelopmentAgenda more broadly.

Roughly 200 representatives from academia, universities, research organisations, governments, private sector and civil society, as well as refugee students and scholarship holders from around the world are invited to explore promising practices, needs and gaps in expanding access to higher education for refugees worldwide.

The photography exhibit “The Other 1 Percent” will open on June 18 in the atrium of the FFO. It tells the stories of refugees in Kenya, Senegal, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan and Rwanda who study with a DAFI scholarship or in connected learning programmes.

For more information, please visit the conference website and the view the preliminary programme. Please note that more information on the individual workshop and world-café sessions will be added within the next days.