Migration And Education Experiences Of Refugee Children In The East Region Of Cameroon : Appraisal From The Perspective Of Barriers To Effective Schooling And Proposed Strategies To Overcome These Barriers

Education is vital and recognized as a universal human right yet more than 70% of refugee children in the East Region of Cameroon do not effectively school. This study investigated the pre and post migration and education experiences of refugee children in the East Region of Cameroon. Two hundred and eleven refugee children, two head teachers, seven teachers, ten parents, one regional delegate, two workers of UNHCR, two workers of the Red Cross and two community leaders participated in the study. Both qualitative and quantitative designs were used .Questionnaire, school and classroom observations and individual interviews were used to collect data. Results revealed that academic barriers like absenteeism(79.9%),fast methods of teaching (58.8%),lack of academic/parental support at home (33.5%),economic barriers like low socioeconomic status of parents (35.5%),hunger and starvation (36.7%),socio-cultural barriers (7.7%),and psychological barriers(14.0%), have a negative effect on effective schooling thereby leading to high dropout rate . informal schooling ,provisional of educational needs, modification of curriculum and pedagogic practices, additional/specialized programming ,modeling/mentoring by nationals and resident refugees, community participation and a favorable school climate were proposed strategies to overcome these barriers. Collaborative efforts of policy makers, administrators, teachers and service providers to ensure access, quality, equity and relevance in education for refugees were recommended. International Journal of Research Available at https://pen2print.org/index.php/ijr/ e-ISSN: 2348-6848 p-ISSN: 2348-795X Volume 05 Issue 20 SEPTEMBER 2018 Available online: https://pen2print.org/index.php/ijr/ P a g e | 148

this increase, about two thirds of the 28,000 refugee children were not still in school (Gilliam, 2009).Reasons can be attributed to social, political and economic factors. "They were about 150 students before," explained the Director of the Manju Primary School in East Cameroon, Gilbert Nouab. "Now there are more than 300." Mr. Nouab said there are many more children who would like to attend school, but there is no infrastructure to support them: "We simply don't have the buildings" (Gilliam, 2009). The International Federation of the Red Cross is offering to help pay the school fees of children whose families are unable to do so, but if all the children were to come to school, there would be no place for them. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees and UNICEF has contributed to infrastructure where possible, yet resources remain insufficient (Gilliam, 2009). This clearly indicates that effective schooling for refugees in Cameroon over the past years has been a night mare.

International Journal of Research
Since 2013, many more refugees have sought refuge in East Cameroon and the host community can not support them socially, economically, and educationally as before. Also, due to several months of disrupted schooling, most of them have low level of education and skills coupled with limited resources provided by the host country. Even those who are schooling in Cameroon have several challenges to cope with at the beginning of their studies. They actually lack appropriate and sufficient support programs targeted towards them, consequently the quality of education they receive may be poor, number of study hours limited, there by affecting effective schooling which May have long term implications to society like ; drop out, teenage pregnancy, increase crime rate, prostitution among others.
In her survey of education designed for emergency situations, Sinclair (2001) argued that education should be viewed as an essential element of humanitarian response to crisis. Although funders often view education as a luxury alongside the essential needs of water, food, and shelter, Sinclair's report revealed a major need for successful adjustment (meeting the psychological and social needs of stressed and traumatized children through education).
McBrein (2009) found that psychosocial wellbeing of refugee students ( a predominant theme which includes a sense of safety, a sense of self, and an adjustment to the cultural expectations of a new country while maintaining connection to their heritage) and language acquisition where the main needs.
The school system is one of the first institutions that immigrant children encounter in their new country. In a study done by Davies (2008) on the adaptation of Sierra Leone refugees in New York City Public Schools, students identified the school as the most significant influence on their The findings of Sokoloff and colleagues (1984) were unique. Most discussions of psychosocial adjustment of refugees pointed to the difficulties of moving on from traumatic memories. One study indicated that after 5 years, more than 80% still had serious concerns about their separation from missing family members; nearly 70% retained stressful memories of the war and their flight from their home country; and nearly 60% were still homesick and worried about communication difficulties with friends and families still in Asia (Stein, 1980; as cite in Ascher, 1985). Once resettled, adults often took lower-skilled jobs with less status than those they had held in their home countries (Fernandez-Kelly & Curran, 2001). The Southeast Asian fear of "losing face" deterred many from asking for help or expressing their frustration. Also, the shame of rape and culturally different gender expectations added new stresses on families (Ascher, 1985). Because adults were anxious about these concerns, they were often ill-equipped to provide their children with the emotional support and positive models that they needed to succeed socially and academically.
In a review of literature on mental health and social adjustment for refugee children, Eisenbruch (1988) found that not only personal bereavement but also cultural bereavement is an important factor in a refugee child's adjustment and educational success. Basing his work on the theories of Erikson, Eisenbruch noted the significance of "uprooting" as a disruption of a person's concept of self. Eisenbruch stated that adolescents may have difficulty in balancing loyalty to family with the American ideal of individual progress. He concluded that schools can be centers for acculturation and that, effective teachers and programs can reduce environmental barriers and increase the child's sense of competence.
Eisenbruch emphasised that effective programs respect the native cultures of refugee children and allow them ample time to adjust and learn the language of their new host country.
Eisenbruch argued that rapid acculturation can negatively affect children's ability to complete their grieving process and claim their cultural identity. Psychosocial adjustment is difficult to measure consistently because of the changing and inconsistent definitions of key concepts over time. Researching on Southeast Vietnamese refugees, Nguyen and Henkin (1980) worked from a theoretical framework in which subtractive cultural assimilation was the goal. Using a 5-point Likert scale, Nguyen and Henkin tested 96 Laotian and Vietnamese high school students who were completing their fourth year in a U.S. school. In rating their perceived adaptation to their new schools, Nguyen and Henkin found that the refugees did not feel that they had adjusted. The researchers concluded that an important factor in the students' adjustment and success was their perception of acceptance and integration in the new school setting.

International Journal of Research
Mosselson's (2002) research with 15 adolescent Muslim refugee girls from Bosnia gives evidence of the complexity of the adjustment. Mosselson found that the girls worked hard to attain high grades (all had GPAs of 3.6 or higher), and that they were cognizant that their high achievement status moved them from being viewed as alien to an identity that could blend into the general culture. In this case, many stated that they worked hard in order to avoid the spotlight that academic deficits would create. A problem with this anonymity was that the girls' depression was also overlooked. Many of their experiences in U.S. schools were negative. One girl spoke of how alienated she felt in an all-girl Catholic school in which "everyone is blonde and everyone wants to get married and have babies" (p. 192). The same student said that teachers asked questions "like I came from some kind of jungle" (p. 192). She made a distinction between school, which she hated, and her U.S. education, which she loved. She became an A student and found that her academic achievement gained her some invisibility (in that staff no longer had concern for he, despite the fact that she was depressed). Mosselson pointed out that school success did not fit with the traditional psychosocial model of poor adjustment or depression, in order words, school success has nothing to do with level of adjustment. So, the students' needs which had to do with creating an enabling environment by the school authority for their psychsocial adjustment were ignored. In this case, some of the students were succeeding academically, but their psychosocial adjustment was poor.
Kanu (2008)  These barriers may be similar to those prevailing in the East Region of Cameroon which has diverse groups of refugees. Gitlin et al., (2003) noted that marginalizing practices such as placement in the school, lack of sufficient and quality curricula, and lack of ESL-certified teachers-were problems common with African refugee in the United States. The Prairie Centre of Excellence's (2001) study of Kosovar refugees in Northern Alberta supports the findings from Kanu study on student placement. The Centre`s study revealed that over 50 per cent of refugee youth aged 15 to18 years arriving in Canada were placed in inappropriate grades. Administrators in the East Region of Cameroon may encounter the same difficulties in the placement of refugee children in school and this may pose a problem.
The trauma experienced by refugee children can impede their ability to study. (Sinclair, 2001).
Resettled infants can suffer from preverbal memories that surface in nightmares. Children relocated in their developmental period of rapid language acquisition and cultural socialization, are prone to language related learning problems and social confusion (Rong & Preissle, 1998;Sokoloff, Carlin, & Pham, 1984). Trauma experienced during flight, in refugee camps, and during resettlement causes many refugees to become distrustful or fearful of people in authority (Hynes, 2003). For school children, this group in authority may include teachers (Igoa, 1995). According to data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study, Portes and Rumbaut (2001) found an average of 3%-10% school attrition rate, depending on nationality, and 14%-25% "inactive" rate (this rate includes children who simply stopped going to school, although they may not have officially dropped out; it also includes those who may have moved to another district without officially transferring). School dropout of immigrant and refugee students results from a complex mixture of factors, including self-perceptions of their academic ability (House, 2001), antisocial behavior and rejection by peers (French & Conrad, 2001).

International Journal of Research
The problem of lack of parental involvement mentioned by Kanu (2008)  2001) indicate that refugee and immigrant children are positively affected by parental support and interest in their children's education. Although that support is not necessarily manifested in ways such as direct parental involvement or collaboration in the schools campus, the fact that the parents' shows moral support towards their children's education motivates the children.
However, some parental factors were coded as obstacles to refugee children's success. For instance, because refugee parents frequently are victims of trauma, they are not always able to provide emotional support (Ascher, 1985). Goldstein (1988) conducted an ethnographic study of two U.S. high schools and a Hmong community to examine how education for Hmong girls was shaped by their educational and societal environments. She supplemented her interviews of the girls with observations and interviews of school staff, family members, and community leaders. Goldstein's research examined Hmong adolescent girls in an academically demanding high school she named "Ashmont" and in a less competitive school, "Logan." Ironically, for different reasons, the Hmong girls were marginalized in both cases because of school policies. In Ashmont, the bilingual program separated the girls from the mainstream students; at Logan, a school that prided itself on racial/ethnic integration, the mainstreaming of low-English-proficient students kept them in low-level classes. Hmong female students generally exhibited docile behavior that teachers rewarded; however, they were not afforded advanced opportunities in academic classes.
Gender bias is common among the Muslim refugees in Cameroon and the female refugees might encounter some academic challenges.
In both schools where Goldstein was an observer, the Hmong were relegated to classes that segregated them from their U.S. peers or placed them only in vocational classes. Goldstein (1988) observed that Hmong and U.S. students were ineffective in communicating with one another because the Hmong girls were not adept in the nuances o f U. S. adolescent speech.
Furthermore, U.S. students did not see that they had anything to gain from befriending Hmong.
A weakness in the study was that teachers received a blanket indictment. Goldstein stated that they were more concerned with classroom order than with helping the Hmong in their acculturation process. She did not point out any exceptions among school staff, although the range of her study was extensive. Goldstein concluded that the girls were trying to challenge the boundaries of gender expectations within their cultural societies but that they also experienced restrictions because of language limitations and marginalization by the dominant society.
The Norwegian Refugee Council report of 2013 indicates that Economic considerations, including transport costs and the cost of learning materials, are cited as one of the main barriers to education for refugees. The report indicates that as refugee numbers increase economic opportunities are becoming more limited and refugee households are less able to bear the costs associated with sending their children to school. Getting children and youth back to school will require support for transport, learning materials and other education costs, as well as greater livelihood opportunities to increase the overall income of Syrian refugee households.

Kanu (2008) carried out research on Educational Needs and Barriers for diverse African refugees
in Manitumba and his work confirms that lack of economic resources available to the refugee students and their families posed a severe challenge for social integration and educational success for the students. More than half the 40 students who participated in her study reported holding full-time jobs (either from 4:00 p.m. till midnight or from 11:00 p.m. till 7:00 a.m.) to support themselves and surviving family members in Africa, and to repay or help parents and relatives repay money (loans) that the Canadian federal government has spent on their airfares, initial housing, and other refugee resettlement programs. The teachers agreed that a direct correlation occurred between the poor academic performance of the refugee students and the long hours spent on their full-time jobs.
Poverty also explains why many of these students and their families remain restricted to government-subsidized housing, often in rough, inner-city neighborhoods that the students characterized as "tough," "full of gangs," and "drug and prostitution activities." The students reported living in constant fear of the gangs and drug dealers in their neighborhoods. According to one of the school principals in this study, The answer to this question may seem obvious: Provide social services to facilitate refugee children's adjustment, provide language instruction for students and their parents, and combat discrimination. An evaluation of the Rapid Response Education Program developed to help children from Freetown, Sierra Leone, after the 1999 violence-indicated healing measures in just 2 weeks after implementation of the program. Recurrent mental pictures of traumatic events were reduced by 8%, sleep difficulties declined by 49%, and more than half of the children interviewed (the number is not given) reported a sense of relief when they drew pictures, wrote, or talked about their war experiences.
However, some proposed solutions have been unsuccessful. Three ESL programs that Gebhard (2003) researched on indicated that, two were problematic. Because language is important to refugee students' acculturation, one might conclude that rapid English acquisition is necessary.
Both parents and teachers draw mistaken conclusions about cultural cues (Trueba et al., 1990), another example of good intentions going awry. For example, in the study by Trueba and colleagues (1990), the parents were often without the benefit of interpreters at parent-teacher conferences, and the parents misunderstood what teachers were asking of them. In the same study, teachers misinterpreted the Asian custom of smiling and shaking one's head up and down as understanding and agreement, when, in fact, it was the parents' way of being polite.
Using a sample of 150 Hmong students in three schools ranging from Grade 5 through Grade 12, Timm, Chiang, and Finn (1998) administered the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) to assess Hmong students' learning styles. The researchers found that students with the least amount of time in U.S. schools were most likely to have scores indicating field dependent learning styles.
A field-dependent style is characterized by a student's preference for group work, the need for outside encouragement, and sensitivity toward others. In contrast, field-independent characteristics include the propensity to work independently, to be intrinsically motivated and self-directed, and to seek personal recognition for accomplishments. Timm and colleagues pointed out that the field-independent and dependent learning styles are not indicative of high or low intelligence. How ever, according to Timm et al., U.S. teachers and administrators tend to associate field independence with higher intelligence. The researchers noted that characteristics of field-sensitive cognitive styles, such as attention to context and sensitivity to others, are valuable and that educators ought to consider ways to encourage both styles. The longer students had lived in the United States, the more likely they were to be field-independent learners, indicating cognitive acculturation patterns. The longevity of refugees schooling in Cameroon can determine the strategies school administrators can take to curb their challenges.

METHODOLOGY
This study made use of the qualitative research design though with some little triangulation .The decision to select qualitative design is based on the fact that qualitative design seeks understanding of a social reality and is more descriptive in its analysis. It coincides with Patton (2002) findings that qualitative design allows the researcher to get closer to the respondents and their environment to get their living testimonies and the phenomenon of interest unfolds naturally. Realizing that the research was exploring new grounds, qualitative design was chosen to enable the gathering of information from the respondents via capturing their thoughts, accessing their feelings, emotions and imaginations on the case being pursued (Patton, 2002;Bryman, 2004). Another reason for the selection of qualitative design for this study is that, it allows for the researcher to probe or make inquiries into what the respondents are saying.
Government primary School Mandjou and Bindia being a real world setting provided the opportunity where the researcher and the respondents were free in the interchange of ideas The quantitative dimension of the study helped in weighing indicators and measuring the relationships among them (Nana, 2012). The cross-sectional survey design was adopted to facilitate the study. Surveys are used to gather data that cannot be directly observed from a sample of a population at a particular time. According to Babbie (1990), the basic idea behind survey methodology is to measure variables by asking people questions and trying to examine the relationship between variables. In most instances, the survey attempts to capture attitudes or patterns of past behaviors. This study adopts the non-probability sampling and a typical sampling size of 217.

Population of the Study
The population was made up of the refugees, teachers, Head teachers and community leaders in Bindia and Mandjou, workers of the UNHCR and the International Red Cross in Bertoua, and workers at the Delegation of Basic Education in Bertoua. Table 1 below illustrates the population of the study area. Workers at the delegation of basic education 12

Sampling Techniques
The purposive sampling was used in this study. According to Nworgu (1992: 55); as cited in Trochim (2004), ¨ this design is one in which a group of people or items are studied by collecting and analyzing data considered to be representative of the entire group.¨ In this type of sampling, the researcher uses his/her judgment or common sense regarding the participants from whom information will be collected. Seven categories of participants were involved in the study namely the refugee children, parents, their teachers, the educational administrators (Head teachers and Regional Delegate), and humanitarian bodies or NGOs and Community leaders.

Sampling of Refugees
The sampling of refugees was purposive because only the refugees schooling in the study areas were involved in the study. They were selected following a simple random sampling selection procedure whereby the heart and draw method was used in which yes and no was written and put in a plate. The refugees who picked yes were considered respondents. The number of pieces carrying yes was equivalent to the sample size.

Sampling of Teachers
The sampling of teachers was purposive and convenient whereby only those teachers who had refugees in their classes were sampled. Those available were selected until the targeted number of seven was met.

Sampling of Educational and School Administrators
The sampling of administrators was purposive where by only head teachers who had refugees in their schools were interviewed. Two head teachers and the Regional Delegate of Basic Education were sampled as school administrators.

Sampling of Humanitarian Organizations
This was highly purposive as only humanitarian organizations involved in humanitarian activities related to the refugees were involved. This involved the UNHCR and the Red Cross Organization and four of their workers were interviewed.

Sampling of Parents
Sampling was purposive as only the parents who had refugee children registered in school were interviewed. Four male and six female refugee parents willingly accepted to be interviewed.

Sampling of Community Leaders
Random sampling was used to select the community leaders and it was also based on their willingness to be interviewed. The Leaders of the refugees were interviewed in Bindia while another community leader (Cameroonian) was interviewed in Mandjou.
To obtain the sample size for refugees, all the schools in Mandjou and Bindia which had refugees where listed by population. Table 2 shows the schools with registered refugees and sample size. used. Using a confidence interval for the prevalence at the 95% confidence level, the sample size was situated within a 95% confidence level as follows: First of all we have to situate P within 95% CI using the formula below.
The conjectured prevalence within 95% Confidence Interval (CI) was then obtained.
Secondly, we could now calculate the sample size for the ranged values of P at 95% CI using the prevalence range and applying the formula above. For a total study population of 525, the estimated sample size at 95% CI calculated as explained above was 180 < 218 < 223. This sample size was shared to the various schools after being weighted by the population size.
Prospecting 10% missing for precautionary reasons, the minimum number of questionnaires to be administered were 198 though 217 questionnaires were finally administered based on Krejcie and Morgan (as cited in Amin 2005) assumption that if a population is between 500 and 550 a sample size of 217 should be used.

FINDINGS
The finding of this study was effected in cognizant to key variables set out to examine the underlying concerns. Findings were done on the number of children who enrolled at the beginning of the school year and those who effectively attended school. The major barriers to effective schooling as perceived by school administrators and humanitarian bodies were high rate of absenteeism/ dropout, lack of parental support, and congestion in classes. This can be illustrated on table 9 and 10 below with data from Government Primary School Mandjou B  Table above shows that there were a total of 64 refugees who registered at the beginning of the term but only 18 stayed till the end with 46 (71.9%) dropping out in the course of the term.   The academic performance of the refugee children who actually completed the school year in Government primary School Mandjou B was really satisfactory with a total pass rate of 13 (68.4%) shared as 7 (70.0%) for the male and 6 (66.7%) for the female. Investigated between the male and female performance and performance by term was carried out as can be seen on figure   6 below.
Comparing performance by term: χ2-test: χ2=0.70; df=2; P=0.704. Figure 3 shows that the performance between the boys and the girls and by term was statistically not significant. Comparing dropout between male and female: χ2-test: χ2=2.68; df=2; P=0.304

Figure 4: Comparing dropout between male and female refugees and across term
The dropout rate was high during the first term and drop drastically by the third term. The difference between the male and the female dropout was not too wide. Figure 7 shows that the difference between male and female dropout rate was how ever not statistically significant (χ2test: χ2=2.68; df=2; P=0.304) but the difference between the drop out rate by terms was very significant (χ2-test: χ2=29.35; df=2; P<0.001).
According to investigations from the field, it was noticed that the rate of drop out was high among the refugees than the non refugees as can be seen on figure 8 below Comparing dropout between refugees and non-refugees: χ2-test: χ2=7.79; df=1; P=0.005.
Comparing performance between refugees and non-refugees: χ2-test: χ2=3.90; df=1; P=0.048. The difference between the refugees and the non refugees considering these two parameters was statistically significant (χ2-test: χ2=0.09; df=1; P=0.005) as can be seen on figure 8 above. The refugees had a dropout rate of total 37.5% while the nationals had only 17.9%.

Lack of parental support
Ten parents were interviewed and their background information was distributed as presented on table 10 below. Pastoralist 2 (20%) Majority of the parents 6(60%) that were interviewed were female while only 4(40%) were male.
Findings were also done concerning the registration of their children in school from the parents and the findings are presented on figure 9 below.

Figure 6: Decision on refugee children registration in school from parents' perspective
According to the findings, as can be seen on figure 9 above, 60% of the children were registered by humanitarian bodies while only 30% of the parents willingly registered their children in school. 10% of the children took their decision to be enrolled in school.
Investigations were done on why parents do not support their children who are schooling and the following reasons were advanced . Figure 10 below describes their reasons.   Figure 10 above, indicates that 50% of the parents did not support their children in school because they perceived schooling as not being important, 40% said it was due to poverty while 10% said it was due to cultural reason.

International Journal of Research
Parents had the following views as to who finance their children's education as can be seen on figure 11 below.  The researcher also investigated the relationship that exist between the parent and the school/child's teacher and figure 12 below shows the details of the findings.

Figure 9: Parent/school collaboration
The results obtained from the findings reveal that 70% of the parents do not collaborate with the school/ their children's teacher. Only 20% visit their children's school at times while 10% always visit the school environment as can be seen on figure 12 above Other stakeholders of education brought out some barrier to effective schooling for refugees which are explained on figure 13 below. From figure 13 above the barriers to effective schooling as perceived by stakeholders range from academic, social, economic, psychological and cultural barriers.
Strategies to prevent/overcome these barriers.   In relation to the proposals made by the parents concerning the challenges faced by their children in school, figure 14 shows that, 50% of the parents proposed that the children should dropout while 30% proposed that the children should be encouragement and have home. 20% had no proposals as to what could be done to encourage effective schooling.
Facilitating factors to effective schooling for refugees as perceived by stakeholders of education in the east region in Cameroon in presented on figure 15 below. These comments can be examined via the lenses of the expectation theory and the self fulfilling prophecy in education by Robert k. Merton who says teachers have a profound role in guiding the success or failure of their students. When a teacher sees the pupil like an achiever the teacher may modify his/her method by using more complementary language, offer after school help, call on him or her more often in class, or even smile more. All these positive feedback are bound to help the pupil flourish. If however the teacher does not believe this pupil can succeed, the teacher might discipline the student more frequently, tell him or her she can't attempt a task, or even approach the student with suspicion. These negative responses can easily promote underachievement Looking at both comments, it is clear that the teachers had very low expectation and wrong perception about refugees' educational abilities and therefore, had not adapted their methods of teaching to this group of children. Most of the teachers in Mandjou and Bindia expressed low expectation and interest in, and hope for, the academic success of their refugee pupils. This is in Teacher-pupil interactions were mostly limited mainly to the teacher asking questions and the children providing answers. The children become passive in the pursuit for true knowledge that would be useful in resisting and challenging the oppressive forces that they face. Such an education not only prevents children's active participation in their learning but also presents denial of critical thinking skills, which are essential for the improvement of a child's academic and future lives.

Strategies to overcome barriers to effective schooling as perceived by stakeholders.
In addition, teachers did not use tangible teaching aids to enhance their lessons. The classroom walls were bare; visuals such as charts, maps, and drawings were conspicuously absent and even the few which were present in some classes were very old and could not easily pull the attention of the learners. Consequently, children learned mainly from the teacher through rote memorization, and their creativity and critical thought were not encouraged. However, children participants' evaluated good teaching based on whether teachers attended class or not, treated them with love and care, and on their availability to ask or answer their questions and provide other educational help that they needed like books, pencils pens ,even chalk and even food during break. All these were absent as was reported by most of the pupils.
An amazing finding of this study was that although there were refugees from different academic and cultural backgrounds, only 2 out of the 7 teachers interviewed adapted their teaching methods, assessment, and interaction patterns to suit this group of children. The Class one In Bindia, the class one teacher said "I bring real objects to class at times. I draw mostly on charts so that they can identify objects before I teach. I don't keep the charts in school because they will tear them."

Madam of Government Primary School Mandjou A said
These teachers therefore held themselves responsible for motivating children to learn, fostered and nurtured professional relationships with children, and took into consideration their own and their pupils' tribal and cultural backgrounds. As a result, they were more likely to adapt their curricula and pedagogical practices.
In Brofenbrenner's (2005) bio-ecological framework, these teachers are examples of individuals in the microsystem (the school) who create conditions to support the development of individuals (i.e., the refugee children). However, these teachers commented that this kind of individual initiative should be supported by the school and government (the exosystem).
Five (5) teachers did not adapt their teaching method and the data obtained from the field confirms Stodolsk and Grossman's (2000) findings that the tendency for teachers to adapt or not to adapt to a new student population correlated with individual factors such as goals, subject matter beliefs, and pedagogical preferences. These teachers did not take the refugees presence into consideration as well as the children's capabilities. Their attitudes therefore confirms Brien's (2009) findings that whether teachers did or did not reconceptualize and change their practice when faced with this new group of children depended, to a large extent, on their teaching goals, beliefs about student capability, conceptions of subject matter, views about how students learn, and racial and cultural awareness.

Lack of Academic/Parental Support at Home
Academic support and parental involvement in their children's education are frequently cited as factors in children's success. Findings reveal that most of the children did not receive academic support at home due to low educational level of their parents, wrong perception about education by parents (leading to lack of interest by parents) and Economic reasons ( low socio-economic standards of parents). Out of the 10 parents that were interviewed, 6 (6o %) of the parents had not attended formal education. Only 2 (20%) had attended primary education and 2(20%) had been to secondary school. Data on their educational background confirms Smith-Hefner's (1999) findings in which the researcher pointed out that most Khmer Cambodians refugees had not attended school in Cambodia, so they had little experience of school by which to guide their own children. Most of the refugee parents had not been to school so they lack the knowledge and experience to help their children with academic work at home.
Although support is not necessarily manifested in ways such as direct parental involvement or collaboration in the school campus and home work, the fact that the parents show moral support towards their children's education motivates the children. But this was found absent in this study.
In Brofenbrenner's (2005) bio-ecological framework, these parents exemplify individuals in the mesosystem (the interaction between the home and the school) who create conditions against the development of individuals (i.e., the refugee children) and may lead to the absence of the mesosystem. The absence of motivation by parents is supported by (Ascher, 1985) finding that refugee parents frequently are victims of trauma and they are not always able to provide emotional support needed by their children.
The parents also had a wrong perception about schooling and as a result, it acted as an obstacle to effective schooling for their children. Although (46.4%) of the children in the study had interest to continue schooling after primary level but the parents had very little hope and expectation for their children's education. Most of the parents (60%) did not support their children because they perceived schooling as not important as well as for cultural reasons. Due to their perception, only 3o% of the parents decided to register their children in school. 60% of the children were registered by humanitarian bodies while 10% of the children took the decision without their parents' consent to go to school. Such children were supported by good will people.
Interview with the parents and the school personnel (the teachers and the principals) revealed great dissonance in the mesosystem with respect to expectations of parental involvement. On the one hand, the school expected parents to be more involved in the education of their children than was forthcoming (e.g., having actual contact with the school, attending Parent Teachers Association, responding to school notices and ensuring that homework is done). Only, 10% of the parents were fully involved in the education of their children while 70% were not. The parents, on the other hand, perceived their involvement as being limited to the home front and considered it culturally inappropriate to interfere with the role and work of the teachers whom they treated with reverence and held in high esteem.

Low Level of Understanding/Language Barrier
All the stakeholders were of the view that one of the major barriers was the low level of understanding due to disrupted schooling (83%) and communication barrier (50.7%). Children had difficulties with their academics because of previous disrupted schooling, academic gap, and lower academic literacy levels. The criteria for admission were investigated and the head teachers revealed that the age and past schooling experienced were taken into consideration before admission. This made some children to be placed in classes that were above their intellectual level. Many teachers and administrator perceived the refugee children as having low intelligence and learning disabilities, but the researcher noted that their academic performance was better than that of the nationals.
An interesting finding in relation to the performance between the refugees and the non-refugees contradicts the teacher's perception about the academic abilities of the refugee children. There was a significant difference (χ2-test: χ2=3.90; df=1; P=0.048) in their performance. The refugees had a total percentage pass of 75% for those who were effectively in school while the non refugees had a percentage of 57.4%.This clearly indicates that if they have what it takes ( their needs) for them to be in school, they will perform more better than the nationals. The researchers', analysis of school documents revealed that school personnel sometimes misdiagnosed students based on faulty information. Teachers in these schools exhibited prejudice by believing that refugees were inferior in intelligence and culture to native-born children, rather than acknowledging that they had a different set of values which led to different cognitive styles.
Such expectations and misinterpretations of these children lead to low academic performance, tracking, stereotyping and labeling (Manning, 2009).
This research finding corroborates with Trueba and colleagues findings in which they analyze the Hmong children who were labeled most "needy and learning disabled". They found that one of the major criteria for the label was the children's inability to communicate well in English. In this study, the researcher discovered during classroom observations that most of these children did not really exhibit characteristics of low academic literacy. Their problem was that they could express themselves more in Fulfulde than in French. They could not speak French the way their class mates spoke and their ascent was different. The children moved between deep depression and isolation, on the one hand, and panic, on the other. They were mostly afraid to answer questions partly because of language barrier. One of the children commented "It takes me time to understand French because of the way the teacher is talking, I can speak but to write is a problem." Some children explained that they experienced trauma because of teachers' expectations that they were low in performing certain skills and demonstrate understanding of knowledge in a language which they could not speak so well. This caused some of them to even talk of dropping out. The above finding confirms Mc.Brien's (2005) findings that Immigrant students with good English language skills were better adjusted to, and coped in their U.S. school environments.

International Journal of Research
Language is a major barrier to learning and until children become competent in speaking, reading, and writing the language, effective schooling cannot take place.
In order for the administrators and teachers in this study to over come the low literacy level and language problem, they must believe in Ron Edmunds philosophy of "Don't blame the school.
Don't blame the kids. Don't blame the neighborhood. If we want effective schools, let's look at the schools". Edmunds believes "we can in the case of refugee children, whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all these children whose education is of interest to us" (Edmonds, 1978). In line with this, teachers should be able to take into consideration Edmunds forth point (Teachers' behaviors that convey the expectation that all students are expected to obtain at least minimum mastery) in his five factor theory when dealing with refugees.
Coupled with the above, curriculum difference was also mentioned by a few children. An analysis of the participants' views and the concepts in this study on curriculum relevance revealed that the curriculum used in Mandjou and Bindia School fell short of meeting present and future needs of the refugee children adequately. This curriculum lacks components that would address the special needs of refugee children such as psychosocial needs and practical knowledge and survival skills, which are necessary for children suffering the effects of war and displacement.

Congestion in class/Over crowded classrooms
One of the major barriers from Stakeholders perspective is rooted in the problem of

High Rate of Absenteeism and Dropout
Another Challenge has to do with the problem of retention and completion of schools by the refugees. According to school records the rate of absenteeism and drop out were very high (79.9%) for the first term and dropped as the term went by. From interviews and observation, recreation facilities were lacking for children and the schools did not have a good play ground that could attract the children to stay in school. Also their absences were linked to their involvement in seasonal activities such as grazing and fishing which is part of their culture and they accompany the nationals who are pastoralists who are their peers for nomadic life.
Mr. Alexis, a UNHCR worker in Bertoua reported "to retain them in class is very difficult. They mostly go for cattle rearing in November and come back in March. We are still looking for a strategy to reduce the rate of absenteeism and encourage classroom attendance". His report explains the high dropout rates during the first term than the second and third term. This high rate of absenteeism was also attributed to poverty, hunger and starvation. One of the refugees in Bindia commented:

International Journal of Research
"I come to school hungry every day. We hardly eat in the morning so I go home during break and when there is no food; I don't come back to school." Discussions with the children revealed that they had to live school early to fend for themselves and their families. Some were not frequent in school because they had to take care of their siblings while their parents go out to fend for the family. The issue of high rate absenteeism and dropout centers on lack of consciousness of the importance of education both to the children and their parents though they are challenged by their precarious economic situation.

Inadequate Resources
Textbooks or teaching materials (i.e., posters, charts, etc,) were not available or if they were available, they were limited just in a few classes and outdated. Teachers made notes from sources available to them and no library was found in either schools. In many of the classrooms at Mandjou and Bindia, the teacher was the only person with a copy of the French language textbook and most of the children did not even have the work book both in class and at home. In most cases, teachers wrote assignments on the chalkboard and the children copied it in their note books. This exercise reduced the teaching time allocated for the lesson. Consequently, the children observed that it was difficult for them to do independent or extra studying at home or to complete homework.
The researcher also observed that but for the football field, the playground was void of facilities common in most primary schools like a swing, slide, see-saw, or even a sand sea that could attract the children and reduce the rate of absenteeism.
Investigations also revealed that there were inadequate teachers and the UNHCR had to employ some teachers to teach in these schools. Though most of these teachers had undergone training, non of the teachers had ever attained any training on how to teach children from war affected or disrupted schooling background.

Economic Barriers
Poverty which stems from the low socio-economic status (SES) of the parents was also mentioned by both the children and the stakeholders in education. Data obtained from the field revealed that 5 (50%) of the parents were involved in petit trading, 3(30%) were house wives while 2(20%) were pastoralist. This indicates that such provisions were not always guaranteed even for children who lived with parents, due to the precarious economic situations of their benefactors. Children reported that they were constantly anxious over how to obtain money for their needs and other supplies even food. As a result, they had to work after school leaving them tired throughout the day and when they returned home, they couldn't do their home work. Two class five pupils commented: From the pupils' comments, these problems affected their school attendance as some attended school irregularly due to lack of provision of one kind or another.

Socio-cultural Barriers
The children complained of unwelcoming practices which are closely related to stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination. They come from a purely pastoral community and can't cope with the agrarian way of life. The teachers and head teachers talked on the influence of Coranic schools. Most of the children go to Coranic Schools in the morning before coming to school. Some female children cited cultural differences in gender role expectations as causing them pressure from their parents to quit school and get married. These pressures live the child with stress and inability to concentrate with school work back at home.

Psychological trauma and fear
Untreated psychological trauma, discrimination and fear were noticed. Findings also revealed that children suffered specific effects as a result of their refugee experiences including anxiety, distrust, sleeplessness, low confidence and self esteem and sensitivity This is similar to Kanu (2008) findings that after five years in Canada, nearly 70% of refugees from war-affected backgrounds had stressful memories of the war and flight from their homeland, and over 80% still worried about family members still in Africa.
The parents in this study reported that neither they nor their children had received any psychological counseling or treatment.
Refugee children often cited isolation, exclusion, and loneliness as sources of psychosocial stress. Classroom and out of class observations revealed that interactions between refugee and their non refugees peers were limited to pair or small group work in the classroom. After class work, refugees spent a large part of the school day in isolation.
What Strategies can be put in Place to overcome these Barriers? Taking into consideration the fact that refugees have some barriers to overcome, require more financial resources, more intensive monitoring, counseling and language acquisition, the following strategies were proposed after a critical look at the pre and post migration and education experiences of refugee children and barriers to effective schooling for refugees. These proposals were: -modification of curriculum -changes in pedagogic practices -additional/specialized programming -modeling/ mentoring by Nationals and resident refugees -community participation -conducive school climate.

Adaptation of Curriculum
The curriculum of education utilized at Government Primary school Bindia and Mandjou benefits the refugee children by providing them with basic competencies namely, reading, writing, and numeracy, which would enable them to pursue learning. The curriculum also provides academic knowledge in various subjects such as science, which they can apply in dealing with aspects of their lives to include the need for proper nutrition, clean water, and sanitation (externalities). However, this curriculum is mainly academic and largely theoretical, with little emphasis on practical knowledge and survival skills that are critical for the survival of urban refugee children.
By utilizing an academic-oriented curriculum, the assumption seems to be that all students will progress along academic lines, and build careers requiring academic courses. However based on the financial constraints facing many of these refugees, it is evident that some of them may not pursue secondary education. Because only 46.4% of the children indicated that they will like to continue school after primary education. Without a curriculum that provides some life skills and vocational training, these students might graduate from primary school with few survival skills, which are critical for them whether in Cameroon or back in their countries.
Sinclair differentiates between curricula for, students in displaced and refugee situations, and for others not facing such situations. She observes that the educational curriculum for the former group of students gives priority to basic learning and basic knowledge for coping mentally and physically, along with knowledge and practice that will help promote a peaceful and rights based rebuilding of the war-torn communities. At the level of the Macro system, the subjects in the Cameroonian curriculum of education do not address issues for these refugee children.
In order to make the curriculum relevant to the refugee children's needs, the Macro system should endeavor to; -Enrich the curriculum with knowledge, skills, and messages that will facilitate current and future functioning and survival of these refugees. At the level of the Micro system, the school can provide children with practical knowledge and skills through basic vocational training in areas such as agriculture, gardening, domestic science, cookery, and other skills in family studies, which children who cannot afford to continue their education can use to earn a living.
-Accommodating the teaching of these skills and messages into the teaching of normal subjects can be difficult, especially given resource and teacher constraints, and an overloaded curriculum.
However, the school can set aside time after school, during school holidays and study circles to teach these knowledge and skills.
-Curriculum in relation to working with young people from refugee and war affected backgrounds should be included in pre-service teacher training programs. Teachers should be more informed about the background and experiences of refugees' so that they can respond sensitively to their needs and create a supportive environment that will build their confidence and encourage effective schooling. -Professional development is necessary to expand skill development for school staff in literacy and language support. The staff should also be trained on identifying strategies for working with a diverse student population, particularly in relation to understanding and managing the impact of the refugee experience.

Changes in Pedagogical practices
The predominantly traditional teaching styles used by teachers as observed by the researcher resulted in banking education, which have been criticized for disempowering children. In teacher-dominated classrooms such as Government Primary School Bindia and Mandjou A and B, knowledge is reduced to information provided to the children by the teacher. Indeed, teachers adopting the teacher-centered teaching strategies consider information to constitute true knowledge. Because different children have varied learning styles, teachers should present information in a variety of modes in order to meet the multiple learning styles of children in the classroom. Consequently the following improved methods are suggested: -Use of visual aids and experiential learning. These include low-or no-cost teaching aids such as pictures/images, diagrams, maps, and charts.
-Cooperative learning to include pair and small group activities which are not culturally biased in class and out of class.
-Peer tutoring, which may involve one-on-one tutoring and cross-age tutoring organized during recreation periods in school?
-Authentic teacher-children discourse including whole class discussions and activities.

Specialized programs
For those who have never schooled before, in order to reduce the problem of language barrier, programs such as Remedial Elementary Language and Education for Refugees (RELER) can be organized during holidays by the stakeholders/relief agencies with the help of the schools. This will help refugee children to be able to get acquainted not only to the school environment but also with the language of instruction. Such emergency education programe should provide free access to organized activities and basic education for all refugee children and young people.
For refugees who were in school and had disrupted schooling with academic gaps, programs like Remedial Education, Evaluation and Placement Programs (REEPP) for Refugee should be organized during holidays so as to get them acquainted to schooling and also to enable the Head teacher to place them in their right classes following Cameroon standards. Such programs will help the head teacher and teachers understand the refugees better before joining them into the main stream classes.
Just as some teachers are able to speak Fulfulde, other teachers should be encouraged to learn the mother tongue of some refugees to facilitate communication within the micro-system. This will help to encourage the valorization of mother tongue day set by the ministry of basic education.

Modeling/Mentoring by Nationals and Resident Refugees
The few refugees who are literate should be encouraged to sensitize and talk to their community about the importance of education. Such people should be encouraged to teach in the schools where these refugees are so that they can see them as models in times like this when they think all hope is gone. Also educated nationals should act like models and parents to these refugees by rebuilding their self esteem and encouraging them to effectively study so that they can become like them. The refugees who are also succeeding in schools school be viewed as models and their performance and attitudes should be rewarded. This can be done through home visitations/ teaching, and provision of material and financial support to these children. This will boost their desire to learn.
Mentoring of children can help them cope with the stress of living through war. This can be done via constant follow up by teachers and providing them with information on how important education is in providing the stability they need, allowing the children to always share their feelings and give them advice on it, reassuring the children that their reactions are normal but not final, hold discussion groups after class at times to find out their individual difficulties, and involving them in extracurricular activities as a means of relieving stress and help anxious children express their fear. Youth mentoring i.e. older students who have the same language and cultural background can hold informal classes at their homes to see through the younger ones.
Since these children also complain of hunger, humanitarian bodies can devise a strategy whereby they provide food as was before to refugees in school. Since due to financial constraint it can not be done every day, they can decide that any child who stays in school from Monday to Friday will be given launch at the end of the day. This will reduce the rate of absenteeism and drop out.

Community participation
A Migrant Resource Center can be created by the stake holders in the host community with a number of videos and materials from the UNHCR that may be appropriate to enhance staff development and refugee schooling. To foster acculturation, adaptation and integration, the host community leader should sensitize the community to be hospitable and receptive to the refugees.
Both the host and migrant community can use the community's resources like the Resource Center and personnel to organize campaigns. The aim of this should be to encourage solidarity, peaceful co-habitation as well as sensitization on the importance of education. Educated refugees should be encouraged to act as resource persons in such a forum. Both leaders can identify teachers from the refugee population who can organize recreational and educational activities, and identify agencies to support the development of basic education programs.
Weekend video learning programs, film shows, and activities should be organized for the children by the resource persons to restore a sense of safety since they can't have such opportunities at home.
To reduce the economic stress, in some parts of Mandjou, the nationals gave land to the refugees to farm on and this should be encouraged and promoted by the leaders. To encourage integration among the children (peer), the community leaders in collaboration with the school authorities should organize sporting activities and games in which the refugees are mixed with the nationals in the same teams. Also during festive periods, some socio-cultural activities that bring together the two communities to display their culture and values can also be organized by both leaders.
To motivate the children, the school administrators can give them a duty post in school (school head boy, class head, or time keeper) so that they should not feel marginalized and sidelined.
The PTA should give prizes to refugees who perform well in school so as to encourage hard work. Partnerships with agencies outside the school e. g. The UNESCO, UNHCR, PLAN Cameroon, International Red Cross, UNICEF, WHO, MTN Cameroon, Orange Cameroon, should be encourage to support and provide resources that are important in responding adequately to the complex needs and barriers faced by refugee students. Such support may be in the form of nutrition, better medical services, constructing classroom, provision of didactic materials and providing in-service training to teachers.

Conducive school climate
Administrators and teachers should be sensitized to acknowledge that their roles are more complex when teaching refugees from war affected background. They should become colearners, challengers, guides, mentors, counsellors and facilitators.
-The schools should posses a welcoming enrolment process by the head teachers and the ability to identify refugee children and assess their needs. There should be an orientation programs by the teachers so as to strengthen relationships between children, staff and parents ( mesosystem).
-The classroom environment should be safe, provides stability, and is engaging and stimulating, in which there are clear positive expectations, positive reinforcement and the ability to identify and encourage children at-risk without marginalization or prejudice. Teaching styles that are flexible and teaching strategies that meet the needs of the children and include activities appropriate to children's skills -School curriculum and programs that are supportive to refugee students and increase understanding of refugee issues within the school including games to promote harmony, diversity and social connectedness, as well as programs that support literacy and numeracy development and language learning across the curriculum. -Partnerships with parents by establishing good communication with families to help them understand the educational system in Cameroon, the role played by teachers and the expectations on children.

Conclusion
The focus of this study was to investigate the barriers to effective schooling for refugee children in the East Region of Cameroon and propose strategies to overcome these barriers. This study goes beyond the already documented educational problems of refugee children to provide an insight into the actual needs and conditions under which refugee children in the East Region of Cameroon get educated and the barriers that those conditions produce. These refugees are getting educated under impoverished conditions which have resulted in high absenteeism /dropout rate, low quality education and ineffectiveness in schooling.
For some interested refugee parents, their efforts to support their children's education are thwarted by their deprived livelihoods and other socio-political factors, which prevent them from engaging in economic activities in order to improve their livelihoods.
This research reveals that lack of parental support, refugee peer support, models/mentors, positive self-beliefs, some positive teacher support, perceived or real attitudes of prejudice, marginalization, and racism from fellow-children, teachers, and administrators, set the stage for feelings of rejection, inadequacy and frustration. The above was accompanied by lack of sufficient resources available to schools and isolation among the various service providers which resulted to difficulties to; access, quality, equity, and relevant education. This indicates a crack in the ecological system. Hence, collaborative efforts of all stakeholders in the education of these children are critical in providing specialized programs and an education that liberates them from cultural, psychological, socio-economic and political oppression.