The recent influx of refugees has challenged municipalities across Europe to find sustainable and cost effective solutions to educate these new arrivals who come from many different parts of the world. The challenges posed for many municipalities are the significant financial, logistical and human resource costs involved in finding adequate teachers and classroom space within their schools for these new arrivals.
Despite their total commitment, many schools and teachers are struggling to provide effective education to the new arrivals and the refugees and their families are experiencing difficulties sustaining their education within their host communities.
Leveraging the skills and experience gained from training and supporting refugee teachers in Africa, this ICEFIL concept document calls for the establishment of an International Teacher Training Academy to train teachers educating refugees or other mobile and marginalized members of their respective communities.
The International Teacher Training Academy for Refugees (based on this new education model) will train teachers to adapt their training style with the introduction of innovative/blended learning models that enable them to teach their students and support them continuously even if they have moved to another community.
The Academy program would be facilitated by ‘innovative learning’ (blended learning) to train Teachers teach refugee students and other highly mobile or marginalized members of communities.
It would teach Teachers how to set specific learning objectives for their students within a complete blended learning environment addressing some of these new challenges caused by the new influx of students:
The Academy would develop specialized teacher training programs catering to the above challenges within the following type of Institutions: