UN refugee agency warns: education of refugee children at risk

epd | According to the United Nations relief agency UNHCR, around 5.8 million refugee children did not attend school last year. This means that 44 percent of the total 13.2 million refugee children of school age were excluded from attending an educational institution, the UN refugee agency said on Friday in Geneva.

New cuts to aid agencies' budgets threaten to exclude millions more girls and boys from school, the UNHCR has warned, according to a new report. According to UNHCR, the transition to secondary school is one of the greatest challenges for boys and girls from refugee backgrounds.

While almost two thirds (65 percent) of refugee children of primary school age attended primary school last year, less than a third (32 percent) were enrolled in secondary school. Girls and boys attended primary school in roughly equal proportions. However, the proportion of girls is decreasing in secondary school. Poverty, security risks, early marriages and other pressures pushed more and more girls out of school.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Barham Salih, emphasized: "Education means protection. But it is also a path to new opportunities and independence." Salih, a Kurd from Iraq, was himself a refugee and called on donor countries to increase investment in the education of the displaced. Countries like the USA, but also from Europe, have been cutting funding for humanitarian aid and development cooperation for some time.