What is education for an unknowable future? In Educating for Durable Solutions, Christine Monaghan explores how refugees and policymakers have answered this question over time by reconstructing the contemporary history of education in Kenya’s Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps. Through oral histories and archival research, Monaghan shows how, since the founding of both camps in 1991, refugees and policymakers have conceptualized, developed, implemented and changed refugee education programs. She also shows why and how, despite these changes, real challenges persist in refugee education in Dadaab, Kakuma, and other camps throughout the world; these include high numbers of out-of-school children and youth, high student to teacher ratios, unpredictable funding, and persistent questions regarding what refugee education is for.
The author shifts focus from debates over the impacts of specific policies and programs and explores instead how and why different policies and programs were implemented whether they led to meaningful changes in the long-standing challenges of refugee education. She finds that when and where real changes occurred, individuals or small groups of refugees and policymakers acted with tremendous agency and as tireless advocates.