No more excuses : Provide education to all forcibly displaced people

Abstract

In 2015, the number of forcibly displaced people in the world reached its highest level since the end of the Second World War. The complex educational needs of people forced to flee their homes are being neglected, compromising the future of entire generations: refugee children are five times more likely to be out of school than non-refugees. This policy paper shows why it is crucial that three key education issues are tackled: The right of forcibly displaced people to education is being neglected on a wide scale, and efforts to redress this situation face significant challenges. Among refugees, only 50% of children are in primary school and only 25% of adolescents are in secondary school. Access to quality education should be provided to all internally displaced and refugee children and youth from the onset of an emergency and into long-term displacement, Countries and their humanitarian and development partners must urgently ensure that internally displaced, asylum seeking and refugee children and youth are included in national education plans, and collect better data to monitor their situation. Financial resources need to be carefully channelled to ensure good quality education for forcibly displaced people. As well as widening access to formal education through inclusion of refugees in national education systems, these resources should be used to enable accelerated and flexible forms of education, provide trained teachers, and ensure that appropriate curricula and teaching languages are used.