Education in Emergencies: Numbers at a glance

This page present topline figures and trends on education in emergencies for children and youth. All data comes from the EiE Hub and its members.

Overview

• Globally, an estimated 258 million school-aged children and adolescents across 87 countries have had their education affected by crises, and need support to access quality education that helps them achieve holistic learning outcomes.
  • This number has increased by 21 million in just one-and-a-half years.
  • 49% of crisis-affected children in need of educational support are girls.
• Out of these children and youth, some 93 million – an alarming 36% – were out-of-school and lacked access to any form of education.
  • 51% of crisis-affected out-of-school children are girls.
  • Children with disabilities are disproportionately affected: the weighted out-of-school rate for non-forcibly displaced crisis-affected children with disabilities is 43%, as compared to 31% for children without disabilities.

• Many of the children attending school still lack access to quality education. Over 90% of children do not reach minimum proficiency in reading and mathematics by the end of primary education.

Displacement

• By the end of 2024, there were 117.3 million displaced people in the world, including refugees, internally displaced, asylum seekers and others.
  • There were 31 million were refugees, twice as many as just a decade ago. Out of these, 41% are under the age of 18.
  • An estimated 330,000 children are born as refugees each year.

• Of the 12.4 million estimated school-aged refugee students, at least 46% are thought to be out of school. That means 5.7 million refugee children are missing out on an education.
• Refugee girls still lack the access to education that boys have. In 2024, 64% of primary-aged boys had access to education, compared to 62% for girls.
• Overall, refugee children face higher barriers to access education than other children. At the primary level, gross enrollment for refugees stood at 67%, significantly below both low-income countries (102%) and fragile or conflict-affected countries (94%).

Source: OCHA Financial Tracking Service

Funding

• Education in emergencies is both life-saving and life-sustaining. Beyond providing children and youth access to schooling, it facilitates access to a range of other services and protects children from forced recruitment, violence, or early marriage.
• Despite this, EiE has consistently faced a more serious funding gap than other sectors. In 2025, donors provided only 24.3% of the total funds requested through UN-led humanitarian appeals, making it one of the most underfunded sectors.
• The aid cuts in 2025 have had a devastating impact on education services in crisis contexts, while education faced steeper cuts than most other sectors. Humanitarian actors were forced to reduce their funding requests by 33% for education, leaving more than 33 million people in need outside the scope of aid planning.
• Total development aid for education is projected to fall by US$3.2 billion by 2026, a 24% drop from 2023. This could push another six million children out of school completely.