Education in Emergencies & Children on the Move
Migration
Escaping poverty, conflict or violence, family reunification, human trafficking and the impact of weather and climate change are some of the reasons why children and young people move across international borders. They often do so through irregular movements. On these long journeys, which many view as a “necessary risk”, they can face life-threatening dangers and deprivations, including inclement weather, homelessness, lack of access to basic services, violence, exploitation, abuse, injuries and even death.
Providing learning opportunities remains key to upholding children and young people’s universal right to education, protecting them through difficult times and putting them on a path to fulfilling long-term aspirations. Supportive learning environments and opportunities can offer solace and hope during and after difficult and often very long journeys. Whatever the case, whatever the politics, the needs of these children and young people must be addressed so they can build a future at their destination.
What We Know
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When migrant children and young people have opportunities to learn, they are one step closer to fulfilling their right to education.
Legal, administrative, linguistic, and cultural barriers for migrant children and young people persist globally, as does the gap between migrants’ and locals’ educational attainment. Despite this, once they gain access to quality education, migrants’ educational attainment and learning tend to improve faster than those of people left behind.
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Young migrants that acquire foundational literacy, numeracy and transferable skills have better chances to find employment.
Quality education and better alignment between curriculum content and job market demands help young migrants prepare better for the world of work. For example, for refugees in Germany, language skills (speaking, reading, and writing) were associated with a 19-percentage-point higher probability of employment; while Uganda’s Skills for Life is a learning-to-earning programme aimed at enhancing young students’ foundational numeracy and literacy skills to aid in their transition from school into the workforce.
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Educating migrant children and young people has the potential to yield a demographic dividend in fragile and higher-income countries.
Providing learning opportunities and promoting skills development for employment and entrepreneurship among migrant children and young people can lead to more economic opportunities in fragile contexts where the population is young, as well as in advanced economies where the population is ageing. By 2050, 40% of the population below 18 years old will be concentrated in African countries vulnerable to fragility, conflict and climate change.
Urgent Actions
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Boost innovative education for children and young people on the move.
More funding must urgently be directed at the education of migrant children and young people. But also, more innovation and collaboration are needed to offer flexible and diversified learning opportunities to children and young people – both while they are moving and once arrived at their destination. Successful programmes use a combination of physical, virtual, and technology-assisted learning solutions to reach the most marginalised children and young people on the move.
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Reach migrant children and young people with and through education to unlock their potential.
This requires investment in better understanding (data and evidence) and adapting education systems to address the needs of migrant children and young people. Accelerated learning opportunities, language support, teacher recruitment from migrant populations, teacher training on curricula sensitive to diversity, gender, disability, and migrant-related trauma are important considerations in identifying best practices.
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Invest in learning environments that are gender and disability-inclusive and promote social cohesion.
Over-crowdedness must be addressed with construction, expansion or adaptation of current spaces, keeping in mind the differentiated needs of learners with disabilities, girls and other minorities. Including gender-sensitive WASH facilities and addressing the menstrual health needs of girls are key to keeping migrant girls in schools. Moreover, schools need to work on improving the overall school environment, fostering migrant and local children and young people’s participation, and addressing Gender-Based Violence (GBV), bullying, xenophobia and stigmatization.
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Strengthen the employability lens on education programmes targeting young migrants.
Prioritise the acquisition of foundational literacy and numeracy, and transferable skills. Invest in supporting the transition from school to work and encourage student-led vocational groups that promote peer-to-peer learning and leadership among young people.
GET THE FACTS
Despite increasing recorded numbers, millions of migrant children and young people remain invisible
Despite increasing recorded numbers, millions of migrant children and young people remain invisible
- Of the 281 million people reported to be migrants, 36 million are children moving outside of their country of origin. They decide to leave for various reasons – from education and job prospects to joining loved ones, to ensuring their own safety.22
- Key drivers of migration include conflict and violence, climate change and environmental disasters, rising inequalities, urbanisation, and the lure of better services.23
- Children and young people migrating in irregular situations often face significant risks to their protection and are often invisible in international monitoring. They include those who move or travel unaccompanied, without a family or legal caregiver; those who are undocumented, without appropriate documentation; those who are stateless because they are denied a nationality; those who are trafficked; or those who have a disability.
- Thus, many migrant children and young people remain uncounted or unseen, with very limited data broken down by sex and age available to cross-reference against key metrics, including education.
- Migrant children and young people’s journeys often take them from developing countries towards larger economies24, sometimes facing significant threats along the way. For instance, the Central Mediterranean route, from North Africa (primarily Libya) to Italy is currently the most dangerous and deadly migration route in the world, seeing the highest number of deaths between 2014 and 2020.25
Migrant children and young people still encounter many challenges to their education
- In a global survey of 4,000 young migrants aged 14-24 who left their homes because of war, conflict or violence, 8 in 10 said they had lost 1 or more years of school and 4 in 10 said they had lost 4 or more.26
- Due to immigration and citizenship laws and policies, undocumented or unaccompanied children in detention, and stateless children and young people, often have limited or no access to education.27
- Migrant children and young people are more likely to leave school early. In the European Union, they are two times more likely to drop out of school than native-born students.28
- Lack of language proficiency is a major disadvantage. In 2012, an average of about 53% of low-literacy first-generation immigrant students in 23 high-income countries received remedial courses.29
- Migrant children and young people tend to live in poorer areas served by lower‐quality schools, contributing to their lower educational attainment and skills acquisition.30
- Like their peers in low and middle-income countries, children on the move are also experiencing a ‘learning crisis’ with up to 80 percent not achieving expected literacy proficiency levels.31
KEY TERMS
- Migration: the movement of persons away from their place of usual residence, either across an international border or within a State.19
- Migrant: A person who is moving or has moved across an international border or within a home country, regardless of whether the move is voluntary or involuntary and regardless of their legal status or length of stay.20
- Migrant in an irregular situation: A person who moves or has moved across an international border and is not authorised to enter or to stay in a State according to the law of that State and to international agreements to which that State is a party.21
*The members of the Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies contributed their knowledge and expertise to this document. Contact us.
SOURCES
19. International Organisation for Migration (IOM)(2019). Glossary on Migration.
20. UNICEF (2022).
21. IOM (2019).
22. UNICEF (2021b). Child Migration
23. UNICEF (2022).
24. IOM (2022). World Migration Report 2022
25. IOM (2022)
26. UNICEF (2018). A right to be heard: Listening to children and young people on the move.
27. UNESCO (2018).
28. UNESCO (2018).
29. UNESCO (2018).
30. UNESCO (2018).
31. UNICEF (2022).
32. UNESCO (2018).
33. UNICEF (2022).
34. UNICEF (2022).
Additional Sources
- Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) (2022). Forced Displacement Collection.
- Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) (2022). Refugee Education Collection.
- UNHCR (2021). Global Trends: Forced displacement in 2020.
- UNHCR (2021). UNHCR Education Report 2021: ‘Staying the course’ – The challenges facing refugee education.
- UNHCR, Global Education Cluster and Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (2020). Education in Emergencies coordination: Harnessing humanitarian and development architecture for Education 2030.
- Education in Emergencies coordination: Harnessing humanitarian and development architecture for Education 2030. UNHCR, the Global Education Cluster, and Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (2020).
- Education, Children on the move, and Inclusion in Education. UNICEF (2022).
