Editorial: The right to education for forcibly displaced people: Exploring ideas on participation, connectedness and technology

Blog post Part of special issue: The right to education for forcibly displaced people: Exploring ideas on participation, connectedness and technology

Editorial: The right to education for forcibly displaced people: Exploring ideas on participation, connectedness and technology

Koula Charitonos, Senior Lecturer at The Open University Rovincer Najjuma, Lecturer at University of Edinburgh Stephanie Akinwoya, Doctoral Student at The Open University Michael Gallagher, Senior Lecturer at University of Edinbrugh 19 Jun 2026

This 黑料不打烊 Blog Special Issue responds to a critical moment in the world’s history marked by a series of interconnected and overlapping global crises. The hallmarks of this are armed conflicts on the rise worldwide and violent onslaughts, human rights violations, growing authoritarianism, sustained threats to democratic institutions and processes, an overhyped technological incursion which largely exists beyond governance, and alarming and steadily increasing numbers of forcibly displaced people. As a result, and at the time of writing, more than . Digital technologies are and the humanitarian systems they interact with. Their repatriation, national inclusion or settlement is increasingly seen through the lens of digital technologies, a trend that artificial intelligence (AI) technologies will undoubtedly accelerate. As such, the focus of this Special Issue is on how digital technologies have been used with forcibly displaced populations in educational provision and what that use portends about ways forward for this field.

Forced displacement is sustained and seemingly intractable. Forcibly displaced people face precarious situations for prolonged periods of time (Kraler et al., 2021), where the average duration of displacement is between 20 and 25 years (Mendenhall et al., 2018). Such precarity is both well reflected in, and compounded by, the lack of opportunities to access and participate in education. Numerous barriers persist that affect how forcibly displaced people access, transition to/from and succeed in higher education (HE), including . Displaced people’s right to quality education is often deprioritised, obfuscated and, as such, is largely underresearched (Matthews & Maire, 2025).

Digital, blended or provision is growing and is increasingly seen as a viable mechanism for providing HE in contexts of forced displacement. Digital technologies are seen as having the potential to support the educational inclusion for the forcibly displaced, if properly contextualised (Charitonos et al., 2025; Akello et al., 2024). Forcibly displaced people are using digital technologies in ways that shape their educational opportunities in new places; and there are new opportunities for accessing formal education, training and income-generating activities online.

In this special issue, emphasis is placed not on the technological sophistication of the models being discussed but rather on the notion of ‘connectedness’, both to foreground and to foster a nuanced discussion around this idea. Connectedness promotes embeddedness in local and global communities, values the opportunities and pedagogical importance of face-to-face instruction supported by technology, and is rooted in collaboration, pastoral support and human relations (see Charitonos et al., 2025). By connectedness, we refer to relationship-centred pedagogies, designs and technological use that is at odds with how digital transformation is expressed discursively in broader policy and strategy documents aimed at refugee inclusion (that is, scaled and data-driven) (Dridi et al., 2020; Gallagher et al., 2023).

The nine contributions in this special issue focus on offering insights into the different ways in which digital technologies are changing displacement-related educational provision, especially at tertiary and higher education. The authors foreground some of the experiences of those engaged in designing, teaching, researching and advocating for connectedness in refugee education.

To frame these ideas, we open this special issue with a post by Sesay and Mutanda from the . They write about refugee-led networks as allowing displaced students to share knowledge, organise collectively and engage in advocacy – and in doing so reclaim their futures. The remaining contributions are intentionally chosen from researchers and practitioners in the field, whose expertise, research and lived experiences bring deeply meaningful contexts to the topics that are discussed.

Rovincer Najjuma with colleagues at the University of Edinburgh (UK), Makerere University (Uganda) and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) describe a global study on facilitating access and participation for students with refugee backgrounds through HE access programmes and connected education.

Marc Alan Sperber (Arizona State University) and Sergio Estupiñán (Beekee) argue for the right of students to participate in education with offline-first learning that enables continuity across offline and online environments, allowing learners to move between spaces and modes without losing progress.

In their contribution, Martha Akello and Sandra Nanyunja, based at Refugee Law Project and Makerere University respectively, argue for the right to education despite displacement and the need to move from access to technology to creating supportive connected learning leveraging on technology.

Lorraine Charles and Shuting Xia address the need for displaced learners to acquire soft skills and why systems support matters for displaced learners.

Drawing on her doctoral study in an internally displaced camp in Nigeria, Stephanie Akinwoya reflects on the use of photovoice method towards conducting needs assessment of teachers in a camp in Nigeria.

In his post, Justin Voorhees describes an impact evaluation of a prominent programme of connected learning provided by InZone at the University of Geneva, Certificate of Open Studies, giving recommendations based on insights of challenges experienced.

Koula Charitonos with colleagues at The Open University UK make a case for greater emphasis on relational aspects of teaching and learning in distance HE, where our ability to nurture a capacity to care, connect and belong will shape the future of our institutions.

Finally, the special issue ends with a contribution by Marianne Knarud and Svein Stollen from the Global University Academy who provide an example of how new, multi-stakeholder collaboration models can help place HE as an equitable and sustainable response to displacement.

Critically, all nine contributions offer insights into the different ways in which digital technologies are supporting and changing displacement-related educational provision. The nine blog posts move away from a ‘technosolutionism’ that pervades the field (Madianou, 2024) and collectively establish the contexts in which digital innovation and pedadogic research intersect to advocate for a just approach to designing learning with and for the forcibly displaced.

References

Akello, M., Gallagher, M., Nanyunja, S., Mulondo, A., Miranda, J. J., Cole, G., & Falisse, J. B. (2024). Minimal computing in refugee education in Uganda: Economies of digital use and non-use, and the right constraints. Learning, Media and Technology, 49(5), 811–826.

Charitonos, K., Najjuma, R., & Gallagher, M. (2025). Editorial: Connected learning in contexts of forced displacement. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2025(1), 1.

Dridi, M. A., Radhakrishnan, D., Moser-Mercer, B., & DeBoer, J. (2020). Challenges of blended learning in refugee camps: When internet connectivity fails, human connection succeeds. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 21(3), 250–263.

Gallagher, M., Najjuma, R., & Nambi, R. (2023). Bidi bidi creativity: The liminality of digital inclusion for refugees in Ugandan higher education. Social Inclusion, 11(3), 309–319.

Kraler, A., Etzold, B., & Ferreira, N. (2021). Understanding the dynamics of protracted displacement. Forced Migration Review, 68.

Madianou, M. (2024). Technocolonialism: When technology for good is harmful. John Wiley & Sons.

Matthews, J., & Maire, Q. (2025). Refugee education: Theorising contemporary approaches. In J. Matthews & Q. Maire (Eds.), A modern guide to refugee education (pp. 1–24). Edward Elgar Publishing.

Mendenhall, M., Gomez, S., & Varni, E. (2018). Teaching amidst conflict and displacement: Persistent challenges and promising practices for refugee, internally displaced and national teachers. UNESCO.

Koula Charitonos, Dr

Senior Lecturer at The Open University

Koula Charitonos is a senior lecturer at the Institute of Educational Technology in The Open University (OU). Her research spans three areas: professional learning for complex professional knowledge work; pedagogies and educational practices for connected learning across formal and informal settings; and participatory approaches to research and development of educational technology. Currently she leads and works on a number of research projects, focusing on the role and provision of digital education in resource-poor environments and contexts of forced displacement. She has the role of the ‘Tackling Inequalities’ lead within the OU Open Societal Challenges programme. Koula serves as the deputy chair of the OU Sanctuary Advisory Network. She is currently the convenor of 黑料不打烊’s Digital Education special interest group and she leads the OU’s contribution to the UN-led Connected Learning in Crisis Consortium.

Rovincer Najjuma, Dr

Lecturer at University of Edinburgh

Dr Rovincer Najjuma is a lecturer in Digital Education and the Global South. She works in digital education in development contexts in collaboration with line ministries, international non-governmental organisations and universities. Her research focuses on access, participation, inclusion, and transitions to, through and out of higher education, particularly for forcibly displaced populations. Towards this end, she works on a series of digital learning projects for marginalised populations throughout Uganda.

Stephanie Akinwoya, Mrs

Doctoral Student at The Open University

Stephanie Akinwoya is a doctoral student at The Open University UK. She is an educator and researcher, whose work is centred on transformative education in marginalised and displacement-affected contexts. She has more than two decades of experience teaching in underserved communities. Stephanie’s research focuses on how teachers in challenging environments leverage mobile technologies to enhance teaching, professional development and student learning. Her scholarship places teachers at the centre of educational transformation, using participatory action research to co create solutions that empower both educators and learners. Her work illuminates how mobile learning can expand opportunities for students and teachers in crisis affected communities. Stephanie has been recognised on global platforms. She was nominated a Top 50 Teacher in the World in the 2023 Global Teacher Prize by the Varkey Foundation and UNESCO. She is a 2022–2023 Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic...

Michael Gallagher

Senior Lecturer at University of Edinbrugh

Michael Gallagher is a senior lecturer in Digital Education and a Co-Director of the Centre for Research in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh. His published work includes critical perspectives on educational technologies, the digital mobilities of marginalised groups, and futures educational research. He works often on digital learning in forced displacement contexts with UNHCR, UNESCO and other international non-governmental organisations, and is co-founder and chief digital education officer of Panoply Digital, a consultancy dedicated to appropriate use of educational technologies in developing contexts.