ASSESSMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PROVISION FOR REFUGEES:- A STUDY OF ORU REFUGES CAMP IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Educational provision for refugee is an important component of refugee welfare and protection in Nigeria. The Refugee Act of Nigeria has very specifically made provisions for elementary education. Specifically, the Act points out that education should be made accessible to refugee as an essential component of refugee welfare, and therefore every adult refugee should be encouraged to access education in Nigeria. There were attempts to implement these provisions in Nigeria at Oru refugee camp through the Lagos Liason Office of the National Commission for Refugee (NCFR), the Nigeria's Refugee Management Agency. This paper utilizes both primary and secondary data to assess the attempts to open educational access to refugee in Nigeria. Drawing from these veritable sources of data, it has been established that some tangible efforts were made to open and expand educational access to refugee both at Oru Camp and at some educational institutions of higher learning. The study has been able to show that the opening of educational access to refugee children has not significantly impacted on the children largely due to poor provision of basic learning materials and inadequate facilities at the only refugee children primary school established at Oru refugee camp. Regarding the efforts to provide and expand educational access at institutions of higher learning for Adult refugee by giving recognition to the certificates they obtained before coming to Nigeria and the Issuance of introductory letters to them to help them seek for admission, the paper is able to establish that the efforts yielded little result as some refugee could not go for the higher studies on account of financial constraints.