Trocas culturais: universidade e pessoas refugiadas

Abstract

This text is inspired by the desire to understand the insertion of refugees in Brazilian universities. Considering that the academic life of students is not limited to access to the disciplinary content of the chosen profession, we seek to get closer to what happens in the university environment. The physical space, the teachers, the classmates, the employees, the canteen, among others, present possibilities of insertion or not of refugees. This experience report presents a project developed at a community university affiliated to the Sérgio Vieira de Mello Chair, located in the Southeast region of Brazil. The Institution annually offers a specific entrance exam for people in refugee situations. Candidates can choose the language in which they wish to take the test and three full scholarships are offered. From 2012 to 2020, 52 students passed the entrance exam, 16 entered the university and, in 2020, two students were enrolled. Although there has been interest and access by refugees to the university, their permanence has been a challenge. There were six dropouts during this process. We observed that, despite the guarantee of the scholarship, there were difficulties with the degree of proficiency in the Portuguese language, cultural barriers, of an economic nature, difficulty in integrating with the academic community, in adapting to the organization of the university and structural difficulties such as depending on the internet. and university computers.