[International] Coronavirus: 'Pandemic of poverty' threatens child refugee education, says UNHCR

UNHCR, the UN refugee agency has shared alerting news last week, saying that half of the refugee children are out of secondary school and the global pandemic has impacted their access to education severely. 

"Covid-19 could cause a ‘pandemic of poverty’ that reverses decades of work on child refugee education," Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees

Before the pandemic the numbers for school attendance of refugee children was already low: 1 in 4 children did not attend primary school and 2 out 3 were not enrolled in secondary education. Due to the current situation, these numbers could further drop with the start of the new school year. Besides the obstacles to access education, the rise of poverty could increase the threat of child labour and child marriage. Mr Grandi further warned the world leaders that even before the pandemic half of the world's refugee children population was already out of school and urged new, initiative solutions to enable their school attendance. 

The new report, Coming Together for Refugee Education, summarises the data of school enrolment in the academic year of 2019-2020 in 12 countries that host more than half of the world's refugee population. The report included some good news, stating that school enrolment has increased in 2019 compared to the previous years, however, the pandemic could erase these results and girls are a particularly vulnerable group in the current situation. Educators are trying to prevent such disastrous consequences by preparing families for distance learning in case of a second lockdown. A further challenge is the reduction of class sizes all around the world, meaning that fewer children will be able to attend school. However, despite the challenges, refugee children are very much motivated to learn and volunteers on the Greek islands have been distributing learning materials to help them on track with the school curriculum.