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education: the challenge

For children within refugee camps, access to education is scarce.

This is largely due to children being needed to provide incomes to their families. It is also unsafe for many girls to go to school if there is not a well-lit route ot the school. So, many girls choose not to go to school for their personal safety. It is thought that there are 3.7 million refugee children out of education worldwide according to UNHCR statistics.

 

Access to education within schools once resettled in third country.

One difficulty that has arisen within the UK is the unwillingness of schools to accept refugee children, especially those who are at exam age. They don’t want such students to have a negative effect on league tables, as their academic performance will likely be far below average due to the fact that many refugees would have had very little access to education before moving to the UK. This is an increasingly large problem, even though these students do not appear on league tables for the first 2 years of their education. But other issues such as not having a permanent address exacerbate the issue. 

 

Challenges at the intersections between gender, faith and education.

Despite an emphasis in recent years on global improvement of education opportunities for women and girls, global imbalances persist and gender-responsive education planning is urgently needed in many parts of the world. At the same time, it is not always educational policy that inhibits the realisation of equal opportunities for girls and women, and cultural and religious attitudes and biases can be highly influential when it comes to girls’ ability to enter and remain in education. This is an area for global religious communities of faith to urgently address. 

Gender-responsive education systems | UNGEI

 

Specific challenges to girls’ education in humanitarian crises.

In situations of humanitarian crisis, girls are ‘most excluded and vulnerable to drop out’ (Gender in education in emergencies | UNGEI) of education and to miss vital opportunities for their own development through experiences of war, displacement and environmental disasters. 

Gender in education in emergencies | UNGEI

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