What is it?
It’s a place for educators working with refugees - including refugees themselves - to find and share teaching materials.
Why make a special site for refugees?
Only 1 in 5 refugee adolescents are currently in education. The UN’s agency for refugees spells out many of the challenges in its hard-hitting report Missing Out: Refugee Education In Crisis. It calls on individuals and private organisations to offer creative response. It also notes that the “ability to pack thousands of educational resources” onto electronic devices makes them “well suited to refugee environments, helping teachers develop lessons.”
Why is TES involved?
Because we happen to run the site with the world’s largest collection of free teaching resources made by teachers. We have more than 1.6 million pieces of lesson material, and over 8 million members around the world. Not only do we have lots of free content already, and a vast audience, we’ve also already constructed systems to make it easy for teachers to upload and download resources, to save, bookmark, rate and comment on them, and other tools to string material together into shareable lessons.
What makes you experts in refugee education all of a sudden?
We’re not. Our philosophy has always been that teachers are the experts in teaching. We want it to be educators themselves who guide what is useful here, along with other agencies working with refugees. We don’t create teaching material ourselves. What we can provide is a solid platform.
Why not just suggest refugee educators visit TES?
Our main site is largely dominated by teachers working in mainstream schools, so material that might be especially relevant to educators working with refugees risks being lost in the crowd of lesson plans. By creating a specific portal for educators and groups working with refugees we may be able to highlight materials that are particularly useful.
So you think online learning materials will “fix” refugee education?
Absolutely not. We agree wholeheartedly with the UNHCR’s statement: “E-learning is an important way to bring flexible learning to refugees. However, it cannot replace face-to-face teaching.” This is just a small project that might assist some of those teachers.
What else does the hub feature?
Its focus is a sharing platform for learning. But there are also links out to other relevant organisations and news articles from our journalists about refugee education.
How do I get involved?
- Upload lesson material you’ve found useful - if you tag it to the curriculum category “Understanding the world” and the topic “Refugee education” it should automatically appear on this hub.
- Tell us what other TES material we should highlight. If you see any material - or other subjects - you think is particularly relevant, whether free or paid for.
If you have other questions about how you might work with us, please contact TES product director Michael Shaw (michael@tes.com).