Peru
Climate
Restore brownfield sites and reduce heavy metal exposure in Peru
Providing displaced youth
with a pathway to university through a tailored high school qualification
- Progress stage
- May 2025 to Dec 2026
The project, led by the NGO Alsama, aims to develop a new educational certification specifically designed for displaced youth in refugee communities. With support from FID, this qualification will be beta-tested, refined, and prepared for international accreditation. The goal is to improve access to higher education and employment opportunities for young refugees worldwide.
Project ported by:
Context
Only 7% of refugee youth aged between 17 and 23 attend university, well below the global average of 42% for non-refugees. Although many have the academic ability, roughly two-thirds lack formal secondary school certification due to disruptions in their education often caused by displacement. Today, this affects around 500,000 young refugees, a number expected to reach 1.1 million by 2040.
Alsama’s research shows that existing secondary school certificates are ill-suited to refugee realities: they are expensive, culturally irrelevant, and often inaccessible. This conditions NGOs to rely on ad hoc scholarship pathways and makes it difficult for universities around the world—many of which are willing to admit refugee students—to fairly assess candidates. The result is an “educational cliff” that prevents many displaced youths from pursuing higher education or formal jobs, despite their potential.
Innovation
In response, Alsama has developed “G12++”, a new high school-level qualification tailored to the needs of displaced youth and the operational realities of refugee settings. G12++ is designed to be:
- Curriculum agnostic: allowing wide applicability across displacement contexts.
- Holistic: assessing both academic skills (in English, Arabic, math, and science) and relevant life skills.
- Affordable: with a target cost of US$20, to be covered by NGOs.
- Context-adapted: enabling administration by NGOs in refugee communities.
- Digitally scalable: using a secure platform with AI-supported marking and remote proctoring.
Since September 2023, the G12++ team has developed a prototype, engaged with stakeholders, and tested scaling strategies. With support from the FID, Alsama will focus on:
- Finalising the content and beta-testing the certification
- Conducting global outreach and partnership-building
- Establishing legal and governance frameworks for scale and sustainability
The objective is to have G12++ formally validated, accredited, and adopted by universities and employers as a recognized secondary qualification for refugee youth.
Intermediate results
A beta test of the certification was carried out with 183 students.
The G12++ certification was also submitted to Ecctis, the UK's reference body for benchmarking degree equivalencies, which confirmed its equivalence to levels 2-3 of the UK's Regulated Qualifications Framework (RQF) — a key result that secures its recognition among universities, employers, and vocational training partners.
In addition, Cambridge Assessment, the University of Cambridge's assessment and examinations body, carried out psychometric tests to verify the reliability of the certification's questions. This work led to a partnership aimed at scaling up the G12++ project.
17 students have already obtained their certification and are now able to apply to universities in several countries. Two partnerships have also been established with Lebanese universities to facilitate the enrollment of Syrian students.
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