224 million crisis-affected children urgently require education support amid armed conflicts and climate change 

                                     Image: Rawpixel 

Armed conflicts, forced displacement, climate change, and other crises increased the number of crisis-affected children in need of urgent quality education to 224 million, according to a new Global Estimates Study issued by Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises.

The study was released at the Education in Emergencies Data and Evidence Summit in Geneva. It offers a refined methodology for calculating the numbers of crisis-affected children in need of educational support while providing important trends analysis to inform future investments in education in emergencies and protracted crises.

"We are sounding the alarm bells worldwide once more. Millions of children are being denied their human right to an education and the numbers are growing. And even when they are able to go to school, they are not really learning because the quality of education is simply too low. Education Cannot Wait and all the education community are working against time. It is a sprint for humanity. How many more facts and figures, and above all, human suffering, do we need before we act with boldness and determination to finance education and invest in humanity?" said Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait.

About 72 million of the crisis-affected children in the world are out of school – more than the populations of the UK, France or Italy. Of these out-of-school children, 53 per cent are girls, 17 per cent have functional difficulties, and 21 per cent (about 15 million) have been forcibly displaced. Approximately half of all out-of-school children in emergencies are concentrated in only eight countries: Ethiopia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, Mali and Nigeria.

According to the study findings, it isn't just a problem of access, it's a problem of quality. More than half of these children – 127 million – are not achieving the minimum proficiencies outlined in the Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4), which calls for inclusive, quality education for all. Even when crisis-affected children are in school, they are not learning to read or do basic maths.

Investing in girls' education yields significant returns. Girls consistently show a strong learning potential whenever they are given the opportunity. Even in crises, the proportion of girls who achieve minimum proficiency in reading is consistently higher than that of their male counterparts, according to analysis from the study.

Nevertheless, gender disparities in education access and transition become more pronounced in secondary education and are largest in high-intensity crises. They are particularly significant in Afghanistan, Chad, South Sudan and Yemen, according to the study.

The biggest challenges are hitting the children of Africa. Approximately 54 per cent of crisis-affected children worldwide live in sub-Saharan Africa. The region experienced a large-scale increase in the number of children affected by crises, primarily driven by large-scale droughts in Eastern Africa and the increasing intensity of several conflicts. The outbreak of civil war in Sudan is displacing even more people across the continent.