Some 3.7 million refugee children—nearly one-third of all refugees under age 18—are not enrolled in education, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says in a new report. Despite repeated calls for investing in refugee education across the globe, persistent gaps exist when it comes to educating this vulnerable population. For refugee students who do attend school, 63 percent are enrolled in primary education, but just 24 percent make it to secondary school and 3 percent to higher education. By contrast, 84 percent of school-age children globally make it to secondary education and 37 percent to postsecondary.

Access to education varies widely across refugee-hosting countries. While some integrate refugee youth into their national schools, many educate refugees separately. Oftentimes, parallel schools are designed to be temporary responses to a surge in refugee arrivals and may result in poor educational outcomes. However, access to education is just one of many challenges faced by refugee youth: trauma, discrimination, lack of safety and security, poor access to other services, and financial difficulties including the pressure to provide for their families make it even more difficult to attend (and succeed in) school.

Turkey and Bangladesh provide two examples of countries overburdened by major refugee populations and distinct approaches managing access to education. More than 645,000 refugee children (mostly Syrian) were enrolled in Turkish public schools and temporary education centers last year. At the height of the Syrian exodus, the Turkish government opened temporary education centers in refugee camps. But during the past five years, Turkey has phased out these temporary schools in favor of integrating Syrian students into public schools. In 2017, a coalition of Turkish government agencies, the Turkish Red Crescent, and UNICEF, with support from a range of governments, launched the Conditional Cash Transfer for Education (CCTE) program. CCTE is designed to incentivize refugee families to keep their children in school by giving them money when children attend school regularly. Around 411,000 refugee children have benefited from this program. While significant challenges to refugee education persist in Turkey, strides have been made in ensuring access to quality education.

However, in Bangladesh, where more than 900,000 Rohingya refugees live in the country’s southeast district, access to education has been sorely lacking. While UNICEF manages education for 192,000 Rohingya children ages 4 to 14 who are enrolled in more than 2,000 learning centers, resources are needed for an additional 61,400 children. Furthermore, a staggering 97 percent of 15- to 18-year-old Rohingya youth are out of education. Rohingya community leaders have complained that Bangladesh and humanitarian organizations have done little to help provide meaningful education access, warning of a “lost generation.” Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, reports that the Bangladeshi government has expelled Rohingya children from secondary schools located near refugee camps.

Humanitarian leaders are calling on countries with significant refugee populations to develop more comprehensive and uniform approaches to providing access to education. “We need to invest in refugee education or pay the price of a generation of children condemned to grow up unable to live independently, find work, and be full contributors to their communities,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.

Best regards,

Alexandra Vranas-Carita

Editor, Migration Information Source