The RefugEAP Network’s overarching objective is to facilitate the development of widening participation initiatives enabling refugee-background students to access HE via English language pathways, with a particular focus on English for Academic Purposes.
Why is this work needed?
In marked contrast to the ESOL classroom, the EAP classroom has not traditionally been a space which is open and accessible to refugee-background students (RBSs). This is due to the presence of a variety of systemic barriers, reflecting those associated with difficulties that refugees face in accessing HE in general, which includes that of the prohibitive cost of programmes of study. While ESOL provision is widely and freely available for these students, EAP provision is typically not, and the importance of EAP has been outlined by Jacqueline Stevenson and Sally Baker in their book Refugees in Higher Education: Debates, Discourse and Practice as follows: “What those seeking access to HE need is English for Academic Purposes which enables learners to develop those sorts of English language skills needed for higher level academic and vocational courses” Although free places on the latter have gradually been growing across the sector, the need still by far outstrips demand, and there is still much work to be done to increase the numbers of EAP opportunities open to refugee background students wishing to access HE.
RefugEAP Network Working Group
The RefugEAP Network Working Group consists mainly of EAP practitioners, researchers, managers and others from across the UK HE sector working together to develop and run the RefugEAP Network. The group has been meeting every two months since April 2022 and is currently working towards developing content for a new RefugEAP Network website, to be launched in April 2023.
Aims of the RefugEAP Network
The RefugEAP Network has been set up:
1. to connect and support individuals and institutions from across the UK HE sector who are keen to take this work forward
2. to gather and share examples of good practice and impact in order to: a. provide evidence of successful sanctuary initiatives related to facilitating access to EAP to allow individuals/organisations to build strong cases for the development of similar initiatives within their institutions; b. provide ideas, strategies and resources to those developing and engaging in sanctuary initiatives
3. to advocate for increased opportunities across the HE sector for RBSs to access pre-sessional EAP provision and successfully move onto degree programmes
4. to create new sector-wide systems, where necessary, to optimise communication flow between all stakeholders (including universities, RBSs, potential partner organisations) in order to match opportunities to needs How will it achieve these aims?
The primary way in which the group will achieve these aims in the next few months is to develop a RefugEAP Network website, which is scheduled to be launched in April 2023. This website will include:
link to a new opportunities portal containing information about scholarships, fee waivers and other forms of support available to refugee background students across the UK on EAP and degree programmes
information about relevant events/workshops/conferences
blogs/vlogs/interviews/podcasts
link to a RefugEAP Network Resource Bank Padlet containing useful resources for setting up and running successful EAP provision for refugees
a link to the web page of the RefugEAP Programme, which is a structured online programme of free non-formal English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classes and independent learning resources, specifically for refugee-background students. Classes are taught by dedicated volunteer EAP tutors and have been designed with trauma-informed principles in mind
a curated list of articles, reports, case studies, etc, which form an evidence base of what initiatives/strategies work (and how to avoid any pitfalls)
advocacy guidelines for talking to senior managers in one’s institutions about developing sanctuary provision
a RefugEAP Resources Reuse Bank to enable people to offer resources such as pre-loved EAP course books to others around the UK who may need them
You could join the RefugEAP Network by subscribing to our new JISCmail discussion list. This functions as a mutual support network for individuals and organisations involved and/or interested in developing widening participation initiatives for refugee-background students to facilitate access to HE via English language pathways, with a particular focus on English for Academic Purposes. It will also be a place where you can keep up to date with what’s happening in the Working Group and on the RefugEAP Programme (which will sometime put out a call for more volunteer tutors via this JISCmail list)
You could contribute to our RefugEAP Network Resource Bank Padlet. In particular, we are looking for people to share any relevant sanctuary-related job/role descriptions, so that we can begin to build a bank of these to share. Similarly, if you notice any category of resources missing, please let us know and we can then add it
If you are keen to get involved as an active member of the RefugEAP Network Working Group (working to help us build content for the website) or perhaps a volunteer tutor on the RefugEAP Programme, you can fill in this online expression of interest form
For any other queries, please contact RefugEAP Network Convenor Aleks Palanac at [email protected]