The COVID-19 pandemic has threatened to set back any progress made in giving refugee children access to basic education, warns the United Nations Refugee Agency.
According to the agency’s 2020 report, half of all refugee girls in school will not return when classrooms reopen this September, with many being at risk of dropping out for good.
“The coronavirus could destroy the dreams and ambitions of these young refugees. It threatens to cause a ‘pandemic of poverty’ in the world’s most vulnerable communities,” said the report Coming Together for Refugee Education, which was released Thursday.
“This is not only about school closures. … It is about the ability of refugee families on low incomes and in precarious livelihoods, in urban settings and in camps, to afford fees, uniforms, textbooks, travel, mobile data and devices, on top of food and shelter.”
Last year, 77 per cent of refugee youth attended primary schools, but only 31 per cent proceeded to secondary education — up two per cent from the previous year. Only three per cent made it to technical and vocational education and training as well as universities and colleges.
Almost all the gains made at the secondary level last year were in favour of boys. While 36 per cent of refugee boys were enrolled in secondary education, only 27 per cent of their female peers were.
The report was based on data from the refugee populations in Chad, Ethiopia, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Pakistan, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Turkey and Uganda.
Across the 12 countries, which accounted for more than half of the world’s school-age refugee population, more than 1.8 million or 48 per cent of refugee children and youth are out of school.
“I am especially concerned with the impact on refugee girls. Not only is education a human right, but the protection and economic benefits to refugee girls, their families and their communities of education are clear,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.
“The international community simply cannot afford to fail to provide them with the opportunities that come through education.”
Surviving the threats of COVID-19 has been especially tough for the 85 per cent of the world’s refugees who live in developing or least-developed countries, he warned.
Mobile phones, tablets, laptops, connectivity, even radio sets are often not readily available to displaced communities, hindering access to information, let alone remote learning.
However, that has not stopped the refugee agency, UN member countries and community partners from working to bridge those gaps and ensure the continuity of refugee education through the pandemic.
Among the innovations highlighted in the report:
- In Egypt, refugees from Syria, Yemen, Sudan and South Sudan can attend public schools. Those in high schools are given a tablet to access digital libraries and learning materials;
- In Jordan, the government in March launched an online distance-learning platform with educational videos in subjects from English and Arabic to math and science that students can access through WhatsApp;
- In the Dadaab refugee complex, a teacher took to the airwaves to broadcast lessons to her Grade 5 class on a community station; and
- In Bolivia, a non-governmental organization has staff in protective gear from heads to toes and uses a school bus as a mobile classroom to reach out to Venezuelan refugee children.
COVID-19 is an added challenge for refugees looking for an education, said the report, as violence and attacks on students, teachers and other education personnel continue through military use of schools and the recruitment of children into armed and criminal groups.
In Africa’s Sahel region, for instance, conflicts forced the closure of more than 2,500 schools affecting the education of 350,000 students even before the pandemic shut down the rest of the schools.
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“The coronavirus has added new challenges to lives already torn apart by conflict and persecution. Many may never ever now return to school,” said Egyptian soccer star Mo Salah, ambassador for the Instant Network Schools Programme, a joint initiative by the U.K.-based Vodafone Foundation and the UN.
“Children who have been uprooted from their homes need books, schools, qualified teachers and more. But they also need the digital technology that connects them to the rest of the world.”
The report calls on governments and private sector to create and deliver technology solutions — by providing software, hardware and connectivity — and to strengthen national education systems to make them inclusive so refugee children are not left behind.