Refugees and Education in South Africa

There is no governmental support designed to promote refugee education at tertiary level due to treating refugee tertiary students as if they are international students. The same treatment also has the potential to exclude them from existing financial aid and assistance schemes designed to assist needy and deserving students for the promotion of representivity and equal access to tertiary education.This book, therefore, argues that exclusion of refugees from such positive measures flies in the face of refugee law principles and that there is a need to accord to refugees "treatment as favourable as possible" with respect to scholarships and bursaries. It justifies their inclusion on the moral grounds of entrenching socio-economic rights in international refugee law as inalienable to refugee's humanity. The analysis of the right to education within the inherent human dignity framework would help us to shed some light on the question whether and to what extent refugees are entitled to the right to financial assistance, and should be useful to law students who have an interest in refugee rights and to those individuals or orginisations who advocate and lobby for the rights of refugees.