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Elizabeth Nuffield Educational Fund

ENEF award to the Refugee Education and Training Advisory Service (RETAS)

Wed, 8 February 2006

The Refugee Education and Training Advisory Service (RETAS) has been made an award of £25,000 for 2006 by the Elizabeth Nuffield Educational Fund to support refugee women who are seeking a professional re-qualification in order to find employment in the UK.

Background

Posed by modelsRETAS is a branch of Education Action International (formerly the World University Service UK). The organisation helps refugees and asylum seekers to access to education, employment and training opportunities in the UK. It gives specialist advice across a variety of professions but is particularly renowned for the expertise it has developed in helping health professionals. The Elizabeth Nuffield Educational Fund (ENEF) has supported the RETAS programme Professional Re-qualification of Refugee Women since 1998. Originally awards were made to women refugees nominated for consideration by the ENEF Committee, but since 2003 an annual grant has been made to RETAS to allocate funds directly to candidates meeting ENEF’s eligibility criteria for the programme. Grants contribute towards course fees and associated attendance costs, examination fees, and the costs of caring for children, or other family members with specific needs, during a course of study.

Programme report 2005

In 2005 RETAS received a grant totalling £25,000 with which it has supported 27 women refugees in gaining a professional re-qualification; grants ranged from £88 (language exam fees for a doctor) to £4,000 (MSc in Parasitology for a veterinary surgeon). Over half the grants made in the previous year (2004) were to women from Iraq, reflecting the political situation in the country at that time. Those assisted in 2005, however, include refugees from a number of other countries as well as Iraq: Sudan, Afghanistan, Iran, Somalia, Congo, Algeria, Albania, Azerbaijan, Kosovo and Bosnia. All are health professionals, mainly doctors, but also included were nurses, a dentist, surgeon, paediatrician, pharmacist, an obstetrician and gynaecologist and a perfusionist.

Outcomes

RETAS reports that many of the 2004 award-holders have now qualified, which they would not have been able to do without the support of ENEF. The range of professionals to be supported in 2006 is likely to diversify following the ENEF Committee’s expansion of the programme’s eligibility criteria; participating professions will no longer restricted to health and engineering, thereby allowing a broader range of refugee professionals to enhance their skills and employment prospects in the UK.

Further information:

RETAS @ Education Action International

Last Updated Thu, 1 June 2006