idea room
More than 40 percent of the world’s refugees are children and young people under 18 and without education their future is bleak. Ritesh Shah explains why we need to move beyond ‘West is the best’ to serve them.
The number of people evicted from their homes due to conflict, climate change and / or natural disasters reached a new record of 89.3 million by the end of 2021.
To put this in perspective, it would be tantamount to the entire population of Germany or Turkey having to move en masse. This figure is not even responsible for the more than 13 million displaced by the conflict in Ukraine since February 2022.
Children and adolescents under the age of 18 make up a significant proportion of the total displaced population (36.5 million, or 41 percent), and amid displacement, education is often an important source of protection, sanctuary, hope, and healing. for these young people.
Schools and other educational institutions are often a first point of contact in identifying children at risk of abuse, sexual and gender-based violence, psychosocial distress and / or forced recruitment into armed groups.
They are a place where children can socialize safely and engage with their peer group and learn to be future citizens of their local, national and global communities. These are spaces where children regain their confidence, sense of hope for the future and agency to change and overcome the circumstances in which they find themselves. They can also provide the skills, knowledge and attitudes that these young people need to realize their aspirations and dreams.
But too often, the potential for education to serve this healing function is not realized. Often it is due to a series of economic, social, political factors that create significant barriers for families to enroll their children in their new communities and homes.
Those who do gain access to education often face major challenges in staying in the system. They may face social exclusion due to differences in language, culture and religion, encounter learning spaces with poor resources and staff, face violence or discrimination, and / or the hidden costs of schooling such as school uniforms, textbooks, learning resources or find exam fees. prohibit.
Unfortunately, communities and countries that house the largest percentage of displaced learners are often those who struggle to provide for the educational needs of their own populations. Expecting them to address the specific needs and interests of displaced learners presents a double burden that is often too great to bear.
As a result, almost half of the refugee children stay out of school. For this reason, there is both a need and a demand for diverse learning pathways for displaced learners and other marginalized populations worldwide, if education is to truly serve its potential.
This year, the Secretary-General of the United Nations has challenged the world community to reflect on how to transform education itself, recognizing its potential to help us meet many of the global and local challenges we face. to solve. It requires action that not only tampers around the edges, but radically reconsider the form, function and form of learning provision, especially for situations, such as learners in crisis and conflict, where school opportunities often do not serve their function.
I have led a research project called ACCESS over the past year, which explores what it will take to bring about the type of change needed for out-of-school children and adolescents to have educational opportunities that are available, accessible, adaptable, and acceptable to them. It has been found that the actions of donors, civil society, the government to strengthen education provision for these young people often maintain the status quo. Although this work is necessary, it is insufficient to achieve the type of far-reaching, daring or disruptive change that the UN Secretary-General notes required.
For example, much effort has been made to provide evidence of “what works” to support learning for these children and adolescents, but without attempting to change the type of institutional and organizational cultures that prevent evidence from shaping future actions.
What we have found extends beyond the politically shifting will within the countries to the political and organizational will of donors, UN agencies and international NGOs that support such efforts. The needs of young people are rarely at the forefront of their decision making.
Instead, many actions are shaped by organizational mandates and self-interest.
Sometimes the answers to these endemic issues lie within the system itself. Our research has identified in most of the countries in which we have worked very strong foundations from which the international community can support existing efforts, including an inclusive national policy framework, innovative educational programs led by civil society and refugee-led organizations, and / or extensive social support systems for the most marginalized.
Lastly and importantly, we have found that there is a lot of presumption about what these young learners need or want. Many programs and initiatives are set up without trying to understand what they require from their training. It is no surprise then that they often do not achieve their ambitions to provide a permanent, sustainable solution.
And this is where those of us who live in countries in the ‘Global North’ come in. We need to stop asking what it means for us if our national budgets go to international humanitarian and development aid rather than domestic issues.
At the same time, we need to remind our policies and decision-makers that transformative change requires time, patience and perseverance. We must encourage them to move beyond the view that the “West knows best” and to learn and build on the successes of governments in the developing world that have taken over education in recent decades and provided it to millions of those seeking refuge.
We must recognize that these investments in the future of learners in crisis and conflict worldwide serve to improve our global community, and its long-term peace, security and sustainability.
Only then can education serve its healing and transforming purpose for the tens of millions of learners who currently exclude it.