Almost half of the 57 million out-of-school children are affected by conflict. In 2012, UNHCR entered a partnership with the Educate A Child (EAC) Programme of the Education Above All (EAA) Fundation, to plan activities across 12 countries where there are high numbers of refugee children out of school. Since then, UNHCR has already ensured primary education for 1,000,000 children around the world who were out of school. Following this huge success, last phase is going for 1.2 million children.
When accessing primary education, refugee children face: Poverty, causing inability to pay school fees, children staying at home to take care of siblings and household chores, and child labour - School attending bans for refugees in some countries - Overstretched facilities - Lack of material and uniform - Inapt curriculum and few qualified teachers - No feeding or extracurricular programs - Language and disability barriers - Weak school administration...
To enroll ONE POINT TWO MILLION refugee children in school, UNHCR will: Encourage Governments to include refugees in their national systems - Build classrooms - Give loans and grants to schools, and grants to families - Recruit teachers, provide certified training - Provide textbooks - Enhance curriculum - Reinforce parent groups to reach out to other unenrolled children - Support Government and partners coordination, which is vital for ensuring standards and avoiding duplicate efforts.
Thanks to the EDUCATE A CHILD project, refugee children will be prepared for further schooling and for their working lives, and less likely to be trafficked, abused, or to fall prey to common diseases or even contract HIV. Children attending school for all or part of the day will free up parents to be more economically active, and will protect the education of older siblings, who would otherwise be pulled out of school to help with childcare or bring money into the family through child labour.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
