New UN-backed initiative aims to educate over 700,000 refugee children worldwide

A new programme backed by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) seeks to provide access to education for 710,000 refugee children in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, a UN spokesman said here Monday.

The three-year partnership between the UNHCR and Educate a Child (EAC) will help children uprooted by the crisis in Syria, as well as in Chad, Ethiopia, Iran, Kenya, Malaysia, Pakistan, Rwanda, Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda and Yemen, the spokesman said.

High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said that education helps to protect refugee children, and that investing in a child's education is an investment in their future and in the generations to come.

Guterres noted that this important partnership will help UNHCR overcome some of the most pressing barriers to education for hundreds of thousands of refugee children, which will give them both a safer childhood and a better future.

Building on a partnership that has given more than 260,000 vulnerable children access to primary school since 2012, the new EAC-funded programme will continue to support the education of these children and help enrol a further 450,000 in schools over the next three years.

About half of the beneficiaries are expected to be children displaced by the Syria crisis.

Wars, conflict and persecution in recent years have forced millions to flee their homes and seek refuge and safety elsewhere. The number of forcibly displaced people stood at almost 60 million at the end of 2014. Children make up half of the world's refugees, and they face the greatest risks from conflict and displacement.

The need to ensure an education for children in crisis settings has never been more urgent. Refugee children are often the most marginalized and hardest to reach and help. They face challenges to get a proper education, including extreme poverty, social exclusion, trauma and language barriers.

Launched in 2012, EAC, a global programme of the Education Above All Foundation, aims to trigger significant breakthroughs in providing quality primary education to the 59 million children who currently have no access to schooling.

Through EAC-supported projects (more than 40 projects in 38 countries), children overcome barriers to educational access and retention.

With the overall goal of successfully completing an entire cycle of quality primary education, EAC strives to improve both individual and social outcomes for these children. Enditem