Abstract

This study probes the educational journeys of youth affected by emergencies. The research featured analysis of available literature on youth and education in emergency and protracted crisis settings (a field known as EiE).

The research team also undertook qualitative interviews with 36 leading EiE practitioners, donor agency officials, EiE and youth experts, and youth with expertise on EiE for out-ofschool youth. For this study, youth are defined as young people as people aged 12 to 24. This research effort is supported by NORCAP, a part of the Norwegian Refugee Council.

The EiE field generally demonstrates a lack of clarity about who youth are or what (in educational terms) they seek. No agreed youth definition informs the EiE field. The IASC Guidelines on Working with and for Young People in Humanitarian and Protracted Crises have had little influence on it. With the exception of minimal access to vocational and tertiary education, EiE was rarely found to include anyone over 18.

EiE’s pronounced focus on girls’ education often overlooks other pressing challenges for female youth. Those who become wives or unmarried mothers generally leave school. Few efforts to support boys’ and male youth education appear to exist.

EiE professionals were found to know little about those not in their schools, youth in particular. The two main types of certified education available for out-of-school youth in conflict-affected settings were vocational training and accelerated education (mainly for the primary level). With minimal exceptions, the research did not uncover sophisticated programme targeting for key youth subgroups.

It did identify a growing post-primary education emphasis on opportunities, but only for relatively elite youth.

Research analysis revealed a strikingly inadequate educational response to massive out-of-school youth cohorts in emergency and protracted crisis settings. Pre-set programme interventions for minimal proportions of youth cohorts are strongly favoured over strategic responses to the specific educational profiles of particular youth subgroups.

The recommendations are framed by three starting points: accepting that the status quo is inadequate, taking steps toward a strategic response, and providing substantially more support. Additional guidance includes the need to dramatically upgrade expertise about out-ofschool youth, instituting youth-centred approaches and applying a gender lens to all programmes.

Source

https://reliefweb.int/report/world/lost-opportunity-education-out-school-youth-emergency-and-protracted-crisis-settings