Lynne Bethke

Scott Braunschweig

This report presents information gathered by the Global Survey on Education in Emergencies (Global Survey). It attempts to fill a gap in information about how many refugee, displaced and returnee children and youth globally have access to education and the nature of the education they receive.

The report is divided into three sections:

• Global Review, exploring issues related to students, teachers, curriculum, educational materials, schools and facilities and funding based on information collected during the Global Survey.
• Country Reports, containing information from Burma, Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, Thailand, and Uganda.
• Who's doing what, where, listing the range of education programmes and numbers of students, broken down by gender, in developing countries with a refugee population.

The report includes an overview of the survey methodology and the Global Survey database, which stores the survey results and is expected to be made accessible on the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) website. The authors also provide a summary of observations and recommendations in four categories:

• Students
• Teachers
• Curriculum
• Schools and classrooms

Chief findings include:

• more than 27 million children affected by conflict, the majority of whom are internally displaced, do not have access to education;
• the majority of refugee children who receive education are enrolled at primary level;
• adolescents and young people have the least access to education, and require both formal and non-formal education options;
• teachers working in emergencies face stressful and dangerous situations, but receive little compensation, resulting in attrition and a declining teaching skill pool. Consequently, existing teachers require training and support; and
• students should be given the opportunity to learn in their home language and to also learn the host language.

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Eldis Education Reporter, June 21 2004; id21EducationNews
Number 29, August 2005; and WCRWC website.