By and large I’m a tremendous fan of Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) and the way they’ve opened up top class education to the masses.  Alas, there have been concerns over the reach of the courses.

A study last year, for instance, by researchers at Stanford and Cornell, found that most students on MOOC courses were young men with existing graduate level qualifications.

The findings cast some doubts on the success of MOOCs in crossing over to reach audiences that are traditionally excluded from higher education.

Bringing MOOCs to refugees

A recent German project is hoping to go some way towards rectifying that.  A major part of the narrative surrounding the recent refugee crisis unfolding in Europe has been the apparent enthusiasm amongst the German population to welcome refugees into society.

This is evident in the move by Kiron University to launch a crowdfunding campaign that will grant access to higher education for the refugees entering the country.

The German social enterprise are offering refugees access to a two year online degree program that is run in partnership with MOOC providers, before then following it up with two years at a partnering university.

At the end of the process, students will hopefully be awarded a double degree from both of the institutions they’ve studied through.

The project has already signed up several partner institutions in Germany, with more partners being sought throughout Europe.  The eventual aim is to get 400,000 refugees signed up, with the initial cohort seeing 15,000 enrolled to begin study in October.

Their crowdfunding campaign hopes to raise €1.2 million to help action the plan.  If you don’t wish to support the project financially, Kiron are also looking for volunteers, so you can help out with your time.

Check out their crowdfunding video below for more information.