Hassan Nur Hussein arrived in Australia aged 15 knowing just a few words of English which he had picked up in a Kenyan refugee camp.

Born in Somalia, he had run away from his extended family who refused to let him go to school, and found his mother who is a refugee in Australia.

Three years later, and after an intensive English-language course, Hassan became school captain at Melbourne's Wyndham Central College.

He is now 19 and completed high school. He wants to become a teacher, but despite securing a university place, he's facing the prospect of not being able to pay for it.

"I chose education because I have a passion for it and I always wanted to learn," he said.

"I'm hoping to help young kids who are in the same shoes as me when I was young, who don't have access to education. I'm hoping to advocate for them."

Hoping for a lifeline

Because Hassan is on a 101 visa — which allows children to move to Australia to live with their parents — he's not eligible for a HECS-HELP loan.

He receives a small scholarship but it is not enough to cover his fees.

He is hoping a cadetship program run by Doxa, a foundation helping disadvantaged youth across Victoria, will become his lifeline.

"Not having education is like you're not having ears or eyes.

"You don't know what someone is telling you or you don't know what someone is talking about, but when you get education you can see everything the other person can see."

Not allowed to go to school

One reason Hassan is so committed to education is that he's had to make up for lost time.

His father died when he was a boy and he was separated from his young mother.

He was raised by his father's extended family, who never allowed him to go to school.

"When I was seven or eight, something like that, I was chosen to become a shepherd," he said.

"In Somalia ... if you have a girl or a female in the family, they are chosen to look after the animals; if your family doesn't have a female, they have to choose one male."

Kenya has some of the world's largest refugee camps. ( UNHCR )

For six years he looked after the goats — his only glimpse inside a classroom came from the stories told by other children.

"When they came I used to ask them what they'd learned, and they told me 'A, B, C', something like that, and I'd never heard that before," he said.

"It was really challenging because I remember crying every day.

"I wanted to be like them, the other kids, but I had no choice."

'Life is not going to be like this'

So when Hassan was 13 he made the courageous decision to run away in search of a better life.

While his family was sleeping he stole two goats and sold them in a nearby village, getting enough money to buy a bus ticket for the 18-hour journey across the border into Kenya.

"I made my decision — one movement to say life is not going to be like this," he said.

"The first thing I was planning was just go there and look for a better future.

"I was scared but being back as a shepherd, I don't want to go back ever."

Loading

New life in Australia

Humanitarian workers managed to track down Hassan's mother, who after 10 years in a Zambian refugee camp had been granted a humanitarian visa to live in Australia.

He said moving to Melbourne and being reunited with his mother and siblings meant he was finally happy.

"In Somalia, the people that I left there, they're still in the same place, they never had education.

"The way they think and the way I think is different. Education is important."

Doxa spokeswoman Belinda Rowse said the cadetship program for which Hassan has applied was designed to help disadvantaged Victorian youth complete their degree.

But each year there are far more applicants than the number of companies willing to become sponsors.

"The program provides financial assistance through a weekly allowance, it links the young person up with a sponsor company — that can be any sized company, from a small start-up right through to a big corporate," Ms Rowse said.

"What the sponsor company does is provide the student with up to eight weeks' work experience per year and a mentor.

"It really is a case of lots of eligible talented young people who have a huge amount to offer these businesses, but we just need the businesses to support them in the first place."