Education for refugees very limited compared to hosts, says UN agency

The U.N. refugee agency said in a new report Tuesday that access to education for refugees remains very limited compared to their counterparts in host countries and called for all youngsters forced to flee their countries to have access to quality schooling.

According to the report entitled All Inclusive The Campaign for Refugee Education, 42% of refugee children globally were enrolled in pre-school education in the academic year 2020-2021, 68% were in primary school, 37% in secondary school, and 6% in higher education.

Becky Telford, chief of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees education section, told a news conference launching the report that with the number of refugees and displaced people growing, it is increasingly urgent that those gaps are addressed.

The report, based on data from more than 40 countries, calls for strong partnerships to break down barriers to education for millions of refugee children, and for a renewed effort to include refugees in national education systems.

On a positive note, Telford said that while the number of refugees in higher education is very low, it has increased from 1% a number of years ago to 3% and now 6%.