Afghan girls may be blocked from taking GCSEs as families moved from London

Two 16-year-old Afghan refugee girls will not be able to sit their GCSEs because the Home Office is moving them out of London weeks before their exams without guaranteed school places, their “heartbroken” headteacher has told the Observer.

Fulham Cross Girls School, an academy in London, enrolled 15 Afghan girls who were evacuated to the UK when the Taliban took power in 2021. They have been living in bridging accommodation in a hotel for a year and a half, but all the families were notified last week that they would be moved out of London at the end of March.

With GCSEs starting on the 15 May, co-headteacher Victoria Tully said the two Year 11 girls, who arrived with almost no English and have worked extremely hard, will not be able to find and settle in to a new school in time. It is unlikely that the new school would be using the same exam boards and studying the same books, she added.

Tully said: “I am heartbroken. These children have overcome unbelievable adversity, and despite living in a horrible hotel their work ethic has been through the roof. To take their GCSEs away seems barbaric.”

The girls spoke no English when they arrived, but have “blossomed” due to their “sunny natures and incredible hard work”. “One of the girls, Zara, came to me very upset last week and said ‘Miss, they are moving us, please don’t let them!’” said Tully,

At first Zara had taught herself some English by watching cartoons, Tully added. She is now preparing to take GCSEs in English, maths and science and dreams of becoming an engineer. Her family are being sent to Northampton but no school place has been arranged for her yet.

Her father, Adib Kochai, who has a British passport and was already living in Britain when his family were evacuated, said: “I told local council officials I would rather sleep on the streets than go to Northampton. My wife is disabled and very ill and waiting for an operation in London, my daughter is going to take her exams. I said ‘Please please keep us here’.”

In Afghanistan, Zara had been unable to go to school even before the Taliban seized overall control. Kochai said: “My daughters have been so unbelievably happy about this new school. They have been building a new life. I am so proud of them.”

Kochai said it was a struggle for his large family living in the hotel, which has no kitchen facilities and where his children sometimes go two days without eating the meals because they are “very bad”. He is caring for his wife, four daughters, three sons and a granddaughter, who was one when they arrived. The family were separated from the baby’s mother during the evacuation and she has been unable to leave Afghanistan.

In January, four Afghan families took the Home Office to court, arguing that moving them from a London hotel to one in northern England had disrupted the education of their teenage children who were also studying for GCSEs. The case is awaiting judgment.

Daniel Rourke, who represented the families and is lead lawyer at the Public Law Project, said of the Fulham Cross girls: “In the life of a child, a year and a half is a long time. The fact that a child has been in education here for 18 months and is about to sit exams doesn’t really seem to be giving the Home Office much pause for thought, which is disgraceful.”

Since their case, Rourke said his team have “repeatedly become aware” of groups of families, typically totalling 50 or more people, who were evacuated from Kabul and settled in London, “but who now face relocation to other parts of the country without proper consideration being given to their individual needs”.

Angela Jackman, a partner and education expert at law firm Irwin Mitchell, said: “These vulnerable young girls will be completely set back if this happens. It matters even more because they come from Afghanistan, and must be able to access the education that was taken from them there.”

A spokesperson for the Home Office said: “We are proud this country has provided homes for more than 7,500 Afghan evacuees, but there is a shortage of local authority housing for all in London and hotels do not provide a long-term solution.”

She added the local authority where the family move to have a legal obligation to allocate children a school place within their catchment area within 20 school days to “minimise disruption”.