4 Higher Education Spaces and Protracted Displacement …
47
4.2.2 Designing HE Spaces in Settings of Protracted
Displacement: The Case of the Kakuma InZone HE
Space
InZone launched higher education courses in Kakuma Refugee Camp (located on
the border between Kenya and South Sudan) in 2012, and in Dadaab Refugee Camp
(located on the border between Kenya and Somalia) in 2013. Within the larger
methodological framework of a case study, and for the purposes of this article, the
authors present an incremental empirical approach to designing HE spaces in fragile
contexts while observing humanitarian principles. The Kakuma InZone HE Space
represents a case study that pools qualitative and quantitative data collected across
different refugee camp settings and explores the potential of collaborative pedagogies
to address protracted conflict.
While written within a non-refugee context, Radcliffe’s (2009) statement on
designing education spaces can be readily transposed to fragile contexts. According
to Radcliffe, a learning space should motivate learners and promote learning as an
activity; it should support individual, collaborative, and formal practice and provide a
personalized and inclusive environment. Furthermore, it should be flexible, adapting
to changing needs and contextual challenges and to the chosen pedagogical approach.
The more challenging the context, the more important the design and the greater the
degree of flexibility that is required to let users adapt different parts of the space to
support different dimensions of their learning.
Radcliffe’s pedagogy-technology-space framework rests on a number of important assumptions about designing optimal learning environments. First, pedagogy is
enabled by space, which in turn encourages pedagogical innovation. Second, space
embeds technology, which in turn expands the space and opens it up to entire communities of learners, both locally and globally. Third, pedagogy benefits from technology
as an enabler, while technological innovation is enhanced by pedagogical considerations. Higher education spaces for refugee learners should thus be flexible, to
accommodate current and evolving pedagogies; future-proofed, to enable reallocation and reconfiguration of space; bold, to look beyond tried and tested technologies
and pedagogies; creative, to energize and inspire learners and tutors; supportive, to
develop the potential of all learners; and enterprising, so that each space can support
different purposes.
In order to implement InZone’s collaborative, learner-centered pedagogy—which
is embedded in its framework of skill acquisition and expertise—InZone is piloting the design of a Higher Education Space for Refugees in Kakuma Refugee
camp (InZone HE Space Kakuma). The design incorporates twenty-first-century
approaches to technology-supported learning in an extremely challenging learning
context, a refugee camp. The design is bold in that it looks beyond traditional
approaches to higher education by integrating both formal and non-formal learning
opportunities; access to credit-bearing and diploma-granting higher education
programs is blended with non-formal higher education programming. This includes
MOOCs, which are offered in both English and French, as well as on-site work-
47
4.2.2 Designing HE Spaces in Settings of Protracted
Displacement: The Case of the Kakuma InZone HE
Space
InZone launched higher education courses in Kakuma Refugee Camp (located on
the border between Kenya and South Sudan) in 2012, and in Dadaab Refugee Camp
(located on the border between Kenya and Somalia) in 2013. Within the larger
methodological framework of a case study, and for the purposes of this article, the
authors present an incremental empirical approach to designing HE spaces in fragile
contexts while observing humanitarian principles. The Kakuma InZone HE Space
represents a case study that pools qualitative and quantitative data collected across
different refugee camp settings and explores the potential of collaborative pedagogies
to address protracted conflict.
While written within a non-refugee context, Radcliffe’s (2009) statement on
designing education spaces can be readily transposed to fragile contexts. According
to Radcliffe, a learning space should motivate learners and promote learning as an
activity; it should support individual, collaborative, and formal practice and provide a
personalized and inclusive environment. Furthermore, it should be flexible, adapting
to changing needs and contextual challenges and to the chosen pedagogical approach.
The more challenging the context, the more important the design and the greater the
degree of flexibility that is required to let users adapt different parts of the space to
support different dimensions of their learning.
Radcliffe’s pedagogy-technology-space framework rests on a number of important assumptions about designing optimal learning environments. First, pedagogy is
enabled by space, which in turn encourages pedagogical innovation. Second, space
embeds technology, which in turn expands the space and opens it up to entire communities of learners, both locally and globally. Third, pedagogy benefits from technology
as an enabler, while technological innovation is enhanced by pedagogical considerations. Higher education spaces for refugee learners should thus be flexible, to
accommodate current and evolving pedagogies; future-proofed, to enable reallocation and reconfiguration of space; bold, to look beyond tried and tested technologies
and pedagogies; creative, to energize and inspire learners and tutors; supportive, to
develop the potential of all learners; and enterprising, so that each space can support
different purposes.
In order to implement InZone’s collaborative, learner-centered pedagogy—which
is embedded in its framework of skill acquisition and expertise—InZone is piloting the design of a Higher Education Space for Refugees in Kakuma Refugee
camp (InZone HE Space Kakuma). The design incorporates twenty-first-century
approaches to technology-supported learning in an extremely challenging learning
context, a refugee camp. The design is bold in that it looks beyond traditional
approaches to higher education by integrating both formal and non-formal learning
opportunities; access to credit-bearing and diploma-granting higher education
programs is blended with non-formal higher education programming. This includes
MOOCs, which are offered in both English and French, as well as on-site work-