| dc.description.abstract | The outburst of the violent conflict in Syria since 2011 has produced an unprecedented crisis of refugees and internally displaced people, with an entire generation of Syrian children and youth living through war, many have lost access to their right of education. The quality of education depends predominantly on the quality of teachers; this is even more evident in conflict-affected education emergencies. The purpose of this study was to gain a greater insight into the role of teachers of refugees within Lebanon and to establish the working conditions of host country teachers (HCTs) and refugee teachers (RTs) within the system and the benefits of using both sets of teachers. This study adopted qualitative empirical methods to investigate the working conditions and motivations faced by teachers working in Syrian refugee communities. Habermas provides the overarching structural theoretical framework for this study, particularly his system-lifeworld dichotomy. During the fieldwork in Lebanon, the methods used to gather the data included semi-structured interviews, focus groups and unstructured observation, participants comprised of MEHE, UN and NGO officials for the systems perspective and teachers for the lifeworld perspective. Overall, the findings indicate that both HCTs and RTs are integral to the learning process for refugee students. HCTs have the right to work as both employees and volunteers, however, legally RTs can only be engaged as volunteers to support non-formal learning spaces and are not truly welcome into the system. Both teachers face immense challenges within the classroom, HCTs more often struggle with student’s accents, cultural differences, distrust from parents and no support from community; many of these issues could be resolved by the engagement of RTs and the Syrian community. In contrast, RTs distinctive challenges were primarily based around legal issues, labour laws, accreditation, security and an unambiguous future. In regards to teacher motivation, both groups showed distinctive responses, HCTs responded as the main motivators were ‘love for the children’ and ‘monetary incentives’, while RTs collectively described the major motivation for teaching refugee students as ‘hope’, the belief that by educating these children they would one day rebuild Syria. The major benefit of using both RTs and HCTs within the system is that it promotes involvement and trust from within the community, which would conceivably resolve the issue of enrolments within the formal system. Additionally, a combination of HCTs and RTs could assist with language and cultural barriers and could create a safe and protective learning environment for students. Finally, engaging both groups of teachers could create a more skilled teaching force, who could continue to learn and grow together, so when these students and teachers do return home, they have the opportunity to rebuild Syria. | eng |