Young refugees from the Middle East resettling in Europe leave everything behind – their homes, families, loved-ones – and also their education. But that is now changing with Kiron University, a Berlin-based program that enables refugees to continue their education… online. While applying for asylum (which can take some time), students can also attend online courses with the goal of transferring to university to get their degree.
“Basically, everyone can already log into these courses,” says co-funder, Markus Kressler. “What we do is we just take these courses, bundle them into degree programs and make cooperation with real universities so that they also recognize these courses in order to really get a degree in the end.”
Kiron also offers degrees in such fields as computer science, engineering, business and architecture – all of which may be a benefit to German’s economy in the long-run as it is reported that there are skills shortages in these areas of the German labor sector.
