Education in Emergencies & Children on the Move
Displacement
Millions of internally displaced and refugee children and young people are missing out on their right to education, and the number of children and young people displaced within and outside their countries has been increasing continually for over a decade.1 This increases the needs, challenges and pressures on children and young people, their families, host communities and governments for more effective and inclusive responses.
Education in emergencies can be a pillar to recovery, self-reliance, and peaceful coexistence for children and young people fleeing conflict, persecution, or disaster. Once they arrive at their destination, education services may not be available, or they may face significant legal, administrative, economic, social, and cultural barriers to accessing them. For instance, language is often a learning barrier. This is the case for IDPs whose mother tongue may be from a different region or ethnicity to that of the hosting community, as well as for refugees who cross international language borders. For refugee girls, it is often difficult to find – and keep – a place in the classroom. As they get older they tend to face more marginalisation, and the gender gap in secondary schools grows wider. Children and young people with disabilities, meanwhile, may find that local schools are not prepared to accommodate their needs. For both displaced and local children and young people, schools can get crowded, and teachers and resources may be insufficient and inappropriate. Where social dynamics are altered, this can lead to lower educational attainment, drop-out, and social tensions.
In 2018, 181 countries adopted the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) in response to these needs, including the growing disparities between the education of refugee and non-refugee children and young people. The international commitment seeks to ease pressure on host countries, enhance refugee self-reliance and support the restoration of conditions in countries of origin to allow for safe returns.2 Through the Compact, the international community has rallied to set an ambitious agenda for increased funding, strengthened collaboration, and accelerated pace in realising refugees’ right to education. It calls for full equitable inclusion into national education systems, development of future training and higher education opportunities, and more timely and ample education responses.
Danielle De La Fuente, Founder and CEO, Amal Alliance
What We Know
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Internally displaced and refugee children and young people have a right to quality inclusive education no matter their status.
Their right to and need for quality inclusive education does not pause in times of emergency and displacement. Rather, they become even more important. Access to inclusive and equitable quality education in national systems creates conditions in which children and young people can learn, thrive, develop their potential, build individual and collective resilience, experience and negotiate peaceful coexistence, and contribute to their societies.
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Access to quality inclusive education can enhance internally displaced and refugee children and young people’s self-reliance.
The knowledge and skills acquired in education, as well as accredited non-formal education programmes, can enable internally displaced and refugee children and young people to become lifelong learners, and increase their opportunities to lead productive and independent lives.
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IDPs and refugee children and young people that learn in their mother tongue can achieve better learning outcomes.
In Sudan, refugee-hosting schools, with teachers recruited from the refugee population, have been established to help South Sudanese and non-Arab speaking refugees integrate into the national system and engage with host communities. Nigeria supports IDPs learning in their mother tongue at early grade levels, progressively becoming proficient in English at higher grade levels.
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When internally displaced and refugee children and young people go to school alongside locals, it can benefit both.
Quality and inclusive education can connect displaced children and young people with their host community’s culture and language, facilitating integration. Moreover, inclusive education can address the needs of both displaced and host communities, those with disabilities, girls and young women, as well as tackle prejudice, stereotypes, discrimination and violence – improving social cohesion and coexistence.
Urgent Actions
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Increase funding and capacity to include all refugee children and young people in national education systems.
In line with the Global Compact on Refugees’ call to action, states and donors should provide multi-year funding to reinforce national education systems and capacities to realise displaced children and young people’s right to education, both in law and in practice. Schools need to be open to all children and young people regardless of their legal status. Fees and other barriers to access need to be removed, educational participation encouraged, and prior qualifications recognized.
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Strengthen education programming to address the needs of internally displaced, refugee and host communities.
Good practises in inclusive education include: boosting displaced girls’ education at all levels; the inclusion of students with disabilities in host communities; accelerated learning programmes; innovative approaches to increase the quality of learning for all; increasing teacher provision from refugee/IDP populations; teacher training; improving technical education and vocational training programmes; providing scholarship opportunities to higher education; and promoting partnerships to leverage domestic capacities and resources.
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Improve timing and amplify education responses in emergencies.
Humanitarian and development actors should work together with the leadership of national, local and regional governments to enhance the quality, coordination and implementation of education responses to emergencies. This can be done through joint analysis and planning, and by ensuring broad funding mechanisms.
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Improve coordination of data collection on internally displaced and refugee children and young people.
Governments, international organisations, NGOs, think tanks, academics, and civil society need to collaborate to solve the challenges around collecting regular, relevant, disaggregated data on displaced children and young people.
GET THE FACTS
More children and young people are displaced3 today than ever before
- In April 2024, more than 120 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced, of which around 40%, or 48 million, were children.4
- The total number of refugees was 31.6 million, of which around 14.8 million were school-aged children.5
- Most refugees are hosted by low- or middle income countries. High-income countries, except Germany and Turkey, are hosting disproportionately low numbers of refugees.6
- There are important information gaps about the sex, age, disability status, education, and other characteristics of IDPs worldwide.7
Internally displaced and refugee children are missing out on school.
- In April 2024, 49% of all refugee children, or 7.2 million children, were out of school.8
- Only 65% of refugee children had access to primary education, compared to 90% of children globally. That dropped to 42% for secondary education, against 66% globally, and 7% for tertiary education against 40% globally.Additionally, only 37% of children were enrolled at the pre-primary level.9
- Refugee girls lag behind boys when it comes to access to education. While some important increases have been made, gender parity has still not been achieved in access to primary education. At the secondary level, gender disparity widens even further.10
Refugee children continue to face major hurdles to accessing and completing school
- Refugee children and young people continue to face specific challenges and barriers to accessing or completing school in their host country. These include missed months or years of school, being overage for their grade, the need to learn new languages, missing documentation, protection issues, transportation limitations, economic pressures, discrimination and stigmatization, trauma, and the need for access to psychosocial support, among many others.11
- Major displacement poses challenges for recruitment, retention, and training of qualified teachers. For example, in Kenya, 42 per cent of primary teachers engaging with refugees have the minimum required qualifications, while the corresponding national average was 100 per cent in 2020. In Chad, where the national average of qualified primary teachers is 65 per cent, the corresponding rate for teachers engaged with refugee learners is 53 per cent.12
- Between $4.4 billion and $5.11 billion per year is the estimated cost of providing education to all refugee learners in low, lower-middle, and upper-middle-income host countries, according to a recent study by The World Bank and UNHCR.13
Compared to non-refugees, refugee children have significantly less access to education
If given the chance, refugee children are able to excel: A UNHCR survey across several countries showed that, when refugee sat for national examinations in their host country, their pass rates at all school levels were high, and at times even exceeded the national average: 82% of refugee students who sat primary exams passed. For the lower and upper secondary school level, these figures were 65% and 68% respectively.14
KEY TERMS3
Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) are persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, but who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border, generally as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalised violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters.
Refugees are people who have fled war, violence, conflict or persecution and have crossed an international border to find safety in another country. Refugees are defined and protected in international law under the 1951 Refugee Convention and subsequent protocols and conventions governing aspects of refugee status.
Asylum-seekers are people who have sought international protection and whose claims of refugee status have not yet been determined.
KEY TERMS3
- Refugees are people who have fled war, violence, conflict or persecution and have crossed an international border to find safety in another country. Refugees are defined and protected in international law under the 1951 Refugee Convention and subsequent protocols and conventions governing aspects of refugee status.
- Asylum-seekers are people who have sought international protection and whose claims of refugee status have not yet been determined.
- Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) are persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, but who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border, generally as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalised violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters.
*The members of the Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies contributed their knowledge and expertise to this document. Contact us.
SOURCES
- International Data Alliance for Children on the Move (IDAC) (2020). International Data Alliance for Children on the Move
- UNHCR (2018) Global Compact on Refugees.
- UNHCR (2022) Persons who are forcibly displaced, stateless and others of concern to UNHCR
- UNHCR (2025) UNHCR Education Report, p. 10.
- UNHCR (2025) UNHCR Education Report, p. 10.
- UNHCR (2023), Global Trends Report, p. 21.
- UNHCR (2025) UNHCR Education Report, p. 16.
- UNHCR (2025) UNHCR Education Report, p. 10.
- UNHCR (2025) UNHCR Education Report, p. 11.
- UNHCR (2025) UNHCR Education Report, p. 16.
- Global Refugee Forum Education Co-Sponsorship Alliance and UNHCR (2019). Global Framework for Refugee Education. Refugee Education Report from UNHCR (2024). UNHCR Education Report 2024 – Refugee education: Five years on from the launch of the 2030 refugee education strategy | UNHCR US; Data as of January 2025.
- UNHCR (2025) UNHCR Education Report, p. 23.
- The World Bank and UNHCR (2021). The Global Cost of Inclusive Refugee Education.
- UNHCR (2025) UNHCR Education Report, p. 22.
