Refugee education insights

Education is a prominent casualty in crisis situations, but it also plays a critical role in emergency response. Continued access to school provides a place of protection and sense of normalcy for children, while effective approaches to learning and inclusion foster resilience, and support longer-term processes of economic recovery and peace. With refugee numbers hitting headlines again, we reflect on two focus areas developed over more than 20 years’ experience working in fragile and conflict-affected states.

Over the last 18 months, Covid-19 has affected education systems around the world, but in refugee settings, the effects of the pandemic on education have been particularly acute. Already in crowded classrooms and often without the necessary educational resources, children and teachers in such settings have generally not had the luxury of turning to online learning. In the calls for teachers to be at the centre of education recovery, it is essential that teachers in refugee settings are not forgotten in plans to ‘build back better’.

While many parts of the world have witnessed significant progress in girls’ education and refugee education in recent years, access to learning remains a critical challenge for refugee girls. In this commentary, we reflect on key learnings from a recent research report published by the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), which specifically considers the state of girls’ education in crisis and conflict situations.

In 2014 the Alexandria Schools Trust (AST) merged with Education Development Trust and we continue to use the trust’s ringfenced funds to fulfil its founding mission: to promote and maintain the teaching of the English language and culture to children and young people of school age in the Middle East.