Challenges and Possibilities in Emergency Education: Insights for Mathematics Teaching and Learning at a Johannesburg Refugee School

Zimbabwean refugees and economic migrants at the Central Methodist Church (CMC) Refugee House, in central Johannesburg have successfully established a combined school-St Albert Street Refugee School. This paper comes out of research carried over a period of five months which employed the ethnographic approach and gathered data through classroom non-participant observation, interviewing and document collection. Using the framework of the Direct Instructional Model (DIM), an approach recommended in emergency education, the paper highlights the challenges facing teaching and learning at the Refugee School and explores possible alternatives to some of the challenges. The paper then reflects on how these challenges affect the effective teaching and learning of maths and looks for feasible pathways for maths classroom practices in refugee situations. The possibilities discussed for the refugee maths classrooms are informed by the literature on emergency education and acceptable maths practices.