As global conflicts come to a head and refugee numbers rise, universities should explore ways to collaborate to ensure the survival of higher education in conflict-ridden areas, a conference heard.

In a panel at the Times Higher Education Arab Universities Summit that featured representatives from Palestine, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Ukraine, speakers emphasised the need to boost efforts to provide refugees with access to higher education.

Agatha Abi-Aad, associate education officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, told delegates that only 7 per cent of global refugees have access to higher education.

“But for this 7 per cent, it is a transformative opportunity to each and every person, every young girl, to be able to access it,” she said.

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Maha Khalilzad, a computing and information systems student at the University of Dubai who is originally from Afghanistan, described how the Taliban’s move to ban women from education was an indescribably “painful” experience.

However, Ms Khalilzad received a scholarship to continue studying at the University of Dubai. She said other institutions should consider adopting similar approaches for anyone who loses access to higher education because of conflict.

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Online resources might be more useful to people impacted by conflict than in-person scholarships, she said. “When we got scholarships to University of Dubai, we had the opportunity to come here and to pursue our education online. But because now the situation of Afghanistan is difficult, most girls cannot travel,” Ms Khalilzad said.

“It has to be a right that everyone, regardless of their gender, their ethnicity or their social status, should have access to higher education, or have to the right to pursue their dreams, to complete their dreams, and whatever they want to do in their life.”

She said such opportunities should be afforded to students in similar positions in Gaza and Syria, and “anywhere affected by war”.

Abdulsalam Khayyat, vice-president of academic affairs at An-Najah National University, a Palestinian public university, described how his institution has helped thousands of displaced Palestinian students to secure access to higher education since the beginning of the war in Gaza last year.

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All universities inside Gaza have been destroyed by Israeli military action in the wake of Hamas’ attacks of 7 October 2023, but An-Najah National has been providing online courses, Dr Khayyat said.

After the launch of a free online course in February, “the next day we received around 40,000 applications from students in Gaza or students who were living in Gaza and had left the country”.

The situation brought significant challenges for the university and students. “Some students have had to walk three hours to get some internet connection to download their learning materials,” Dr Khayyat said.

But the “key” to providing higher education to students experiencing conflict or displacement was communication, he continued.

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“You have to have good communication with the students. And when I say ‘good communication’, it’s not like our academic communication,” he said.

“We should really understand this generation and communicate with them in the way they understand. Otherwise, you would never be successful because there’s a different perception of things between the student generation and our generation.”

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Mental health also needed to be prioritised when setting up education resources for conflict-ridden communities, “otherwise you’ll end up with a generation with a lot of knowledge, but with no skills or with depression, who are absolutely not for the market”.

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com