Júlia: I asked them several questions and these are her main findings:
-Many students complain about school fees being higher than worth it
-Are you happy with your teachers? They told me that of the 6 teachers they are just happy with 3 of them. They told me that usually, they have language problems with some teachers because they mix English with Arabic.
- Some students complained about teachers giving them homework and not going through it in the next class.
-Some students complained about teachers not going through the content of previous classes, jumping from one topic to another randomly.
-Some students complained about teachers not being helpful despite trying their best.
-Some students complained about teachers and schools not giving them a voice, and not listening to their demands.
-Many students complained about racism that they face everywhere. They do not have a safe space where to gather and have fun, not going to clubs because they face racism, racism is faced by everyone. A girl went earlier to an Egyptian public school. She faced huge bureaucratic barriers until the point that she was one year without going to school. Finally, she entered a public school and was there for two years but she was facing so much bullying that she left and came to the Innovation Academy learning center.
-Many of them come to the learning center because of the language. They know how to speak Arabic and they understand it but they struggle in writing and reading it. Grammar is hard. They also complain about that for universities. They told me that they do not want to go to university in Egypt for this reason.
-Some students complained about Egypt. They do not want to study in Egypt, they do not like Egypt
-All students have an interest in going abroad to university, France or South Korea
-They like to wear a uniform although it is expensive
-They complain about South Sudanese gangs being everywhere and carrying knives. They try to avoid becoming a target and they just run away. They avoid areas where they suspect these gangs are present and so they just try to avoid them
-Some of them live very far away like more than 1 hour and a half from the Innovation Academy
-They complain about history being just about memorizing
-Many of them want to be petrol engineers. They know that in South Sudan there are resources and want to be the leaders of their own communities
-Girls complain about being sexually harassed in the streets
-Some of them want to learn Arabic but they would prefer to learn also another language. They know that this is because they have faced so much racism.
-They miss subjects such as music, art, and over everything sport, they miss a library
-Students spoke about power relations in their classes, the boys were speaking much more about this than the girls
-The Filipino student is not a refugee. His mother is a doctor and she was married to an Egyptian businessman. He went to this school because of the language. Private schools were way too expensive for his family.
