Coming together: A study of the role of non-state actors in refugee higher education in South Africa

In an increasingly globalised and competitive knowledge economy (Robertson, 2005), there has been growing concern about the exclusion of refugees in higher education. Refugee access to higher education is 1 percent (Pherali and Abu Moghli, 2019) compared to a global average of 36 percent. Non-state actors in international development are increasing the breadth and scope of their involvement in education (Selenica and Novelli, 2021) due to the increasingly protracted nature of refugee conflicts. Within refugee higher education, higher education via online learning platforms (Pherali and Abu Moghli, 2019) is rapidly growing, enabling refugee students to access academic resources without private academic institutions’ physical presence in host communities. This research will be an extended case study on a refugee higher education partnership in Cape Town.