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The nineteenth annual conference of the Centre for Online and Distance Education (CODE) was held on 13 and 14 March 2025, as usual at Senate House, ���Ｇ of London. As far as possible it was in hybrid format, with online delegates able to take part in all sessions apart from the workshops. The overall conference theme of ‘Empowering and Sustaining Change’ clearly struck a chord with a profession that had, in the space of a mere half-decade, come to terms with the disruptions of a global pandemic followed by the AI revolution, as it was fully booked.

The conference began with the first of four keynote lectures. Following a short introduction from, first, Wendy Thomson, Vice-Chancellor of the ���Ｇ of London and then CODE Director Linda Amrane-Cooper, the speaker was introduced by the Centre’s Associate Director, Ash Cox. is Associate Professor of International Politics at the ���Ｇ of Leicester, and her talk showcased a programme that her university had set up to help refugees and other forcibly displaced people access its distance-based courses.

Helen began by explaining that she was there to share ���𾱳�����ٱ��’s experience in setting up these ‘sanctuary scholarships’, but also to learn from the community of experts in the room. Her talk would be ‘a little bit of everything’, going through the international context, the role of online and distance education in that context and how ���𾱳�����ٱ��’s sanctuary awards have developed over time.

Introduction

The estimates that only about 7% of refugees currently have access to higher education, and they are aiming to more than double this by 2030 under their roadmap. Not only have most refugee education programmes concentrated on the school level, but, even within higher education, there is more focus on undergraduate programmes: therefore, ���𾱳�����ٱ��’s provision for refugee scholars is aimed at postgraduates, mainly those studying for Masters degrees.

In 2018 the ���Ｇ of Leicester was one of the first UK universities to be awarded the title in recognition of its work to welcome those seeking refuge. There are now 38 recognised sanctuary universities in this network; they work in many different ways, but most are focused on supporting sanctuary-seeking students who live locally on campus-based courses. These, however, will not be appropriate for all displaced people who might benefit.

Locally, the city of Leicester is itself both a recognised and an asylum seeker dispersal hub for the East Midlands.

We, as RIDE delegates, don’t need persuading of the general value of higher education, and of increasing access to it. The Refugee Support Network and Jigsaw consultancy produced a useful in 2016 that listed some ‘really significant impacts’ of increasing this access to and for people in its community:

• Access to employment opportunities
• The opportunity to gain new skills and improve others, including language skills
• Increasing mental wellbeing
• New community projects
• Knock-on effects on the quality of primary and secondary education due to the availability of better-qualified teachers
• Improved cross-cultural understanding and social cohesion
• Increased political and social engagement leading to a decrease in poverty and marginalisation

Distance learning is playing an important role in increasing higher education access for people who have been forcibly displaced. One good example is the , a group of HE providers that provides specific, high-quality education for students in crisis situations, both face-to-face and online. Leicester was not in a position to design separate provision for displaced students, exploring instead how they could widen access to their well-established programme of distance-based postgraduate by providing ‘sanctuary scholarships’.

The Leicester Experience

���𾱳�����ٱ��’s is a fee waiver for students who are forcibly displaced. The participating programmes are wholly online and mostly asynchronous, and students may be based anywhere. As it is entirely distance-based, there are no problems with students needing visas. The term ‘forcibly displaced’ is used rather than ‘refugee’ or ‘asylum- seeker’ as these terms have different legal meanings in different places and are sometimes considered derogatory.

To become a sanctuary scholar, an applicant must meet the standard entry requirements for the course concerned, but the assessors are aware that students may not have access to their certificates or be able to show that they meet the requirements in standard ways. This means that the application process is extremely flexible with students considered on a case-by-case basis. They offer in-house English language testing that is cheaper than the commercial version, and they take care not to make the selection process into ‘a trauma competition’: rather, the successful students are those who face the highest barriers to access. The assessors will also identify those students who are best placed to benefit from the study, but this could be for any reason, including improved mental health and wellbeing. Many students in these situations are unable to visualise their future in the ways that conventional students do.

The scheme was launched first in 2018 by Helen’s own School, the School of History, Politics and International Relations. At the time, they thought they were the first UK university to offer such provision: they may have been pipped to the post by London, but they were still pretty near the start, and this meant they had few ‘role models’ to follow. They were fortunate that the first intake of sanctuary scholars became the subject of a by Dr Gabi Witthaus at the ���Ｇ of Lancaster. Gabi’s findings were very positive about the distance-learning programme as a whole and have been very useful as the scheme developed.

In 2022, after the invasion of Ukraine, a project led by Phil Horspool and the at Leicester extended the original scheme to include . These were designed for those whose study in Ukraine had been disrupted by the war, not just Ukrainian nationals, and they therefore reached overseas students who were excluded from many of the schemes for Ukrainians. The following year, the ���Ｇ approved a further 100 sanctuary awards, and Helen was able to announce these at the Education Campus of the in Geneva.

Recent applicants for general Sanctuary Scholar awards include women from Afghanistan – who are not displaced as such but prevented from accessing higher education by political repression – and now, increasingly, Palestinians in Gaza. The fragile living conditions of these potential students has raised difficulties for a programme that was not specifically designed for these. The team was, however, fortunate to be advised by a senior Palestinian academic: , Dean of Education at Naja National ���Ｇ in the West Bank. She has given them important practical advice about trauma-informed and low-bandwidth education, ‘ such as… understanding whether people will be charging their phones and unable to respond in the morning or working online then before the signal dies ’.

Helen illustrated the geographical reach of the programme by listing the 10 students on the first intake. They were:

• Two students from Afghanistan, living in Leicester
• One from Iraq, living in Leicester
• One from Syria, living in Germany
• One from the MENA region, living elsewhere in the UK
• One from Somalia, living as a refugee in Malaysia
• One from Rwanda, living as a refugee in Uganda
• One from Syria, living in the Netherlands
• One from the Democratic Republic of Congo, living in the Dzaleka refugee camp in Malawi
• One from Iran who lived first in Turkey and then in Australia

Gabi Witthaus had interviewed these students as part of her PhD work. The quotes they gave her were very positive and at times quite moving:

‘Choosing an online programme gives me the flexibility that I need… Seriously, when I turn on my laptop or my iPad and start studying, these are the only moments I have during the day when I feel that I am doing something for myself.’

‘When I got the opportunity to study a master’s online, it was a wonderful gift for me…’

The total number of Sanctuary Scholars awarded places on the Leicester schemes has now reached 82.

Wider Lessons

Helen ran through some of the things that they had learned since the programme began. She stressed the need for extreme flexibility in, for example, setting assessments and submission dates. And, importantly, avoiding assumptions as to what a sanctuary scholar is (for example, not expecting gratitude or using them as ‘good news stories’). The hard work for both scholars and staff begins, rather than ends, with the award of the scholarship. And what is good for sanctuary scholars – particularly clarity in communication and in setting the learning environments – will also be good for all students.

She ended her presentation by speaking directly to anyone who had been inspired by a fascinating lecture and who might consider setting up a similar scheme. The value of distance learning to an institution is much more than just financial: it can widen participation to include

some of the most excluded groups in society. But simply ‘including the excluded’ is not enough without also seeking to change the power relations implicit in our institutions and to embed sanctuary in their structures. And to do this we need to find colleagues who share our vision.

Discussion

Ash introduced an activity that would lead into a wider discussion. Working in tables in the room, and in breakout rooms online, delegates were asked to consider two questions, with online delegates submitting their answers via a .

• What are the most likely barriers students who are displaced, excluded due to persecution, or in crisis situations will face in accessing distance learning?
• What could your distance learning programme do to reduce these barriers? For an extra challenge, how can you reduce these barriers without using external resources?

Delegates were also asked to submit and vote on questions for wider discussion via PollEverywhere, and the session ended with a short wider discussion.

Taking the and the PollEverywhere ‘leaderboard’ together, one barrier dominated delegates’ thinking: infrastructure. Most sanctuary scholars will have difficulty accessing adequate devices and reliable sources of power and connectivity. Answers stressed the importance of asynchronous communication using simple tools, for example copying VLE content into Word documents. And, very importantly, flexibility is crucial. No two sanctuary scholars will face the same challenges, and (for example) they may not all need or even want to achieve a qualification. A programme that is co-created with students and others with knowledge of fragile environments will help all.

Linda ended the session by thanking Helen, pointing out that she ‘couldn’t think of a better keynote to start the conversations at RIDE’.

Appendix

Web links for resources discussed in Helen’s presentation:

• (a free online pre-university academic English skills programme for refugee- background students across the UK. Established by SSU at the ���Ｇ of Leicester and ���Ｇ of Leeds language Centre)
• (higher education for refugees in low resource environments: landscape review)
• Ibrahim Aldalis’ detailing how he was able to complete an online pre-sessional programme via the ���Ｇ of Birmingham this summer whilst enduring conditions of extreme risk and fragility in Gaza
• EAP Teaching Fellow Alison Tinker’s PowerPoint slides on detailing the sorts of challenges faced by the team at the ���Ｇ of Birmingham in supporting Ibrahim on this programme, and adjustments they made in order to overcome these
• EAP Tutor and Programme Co-ordinator Yvonne Fraser’s chapter on considerations when providing
• Professor Saida Affouneh’s recently developed (drawing on her work developing online programmes for students currently in Gaza)