Rohingya children in their fotune shelter in Lhokseumawe, Indonesia.

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SOPA Images / SIPA / SIPA

Half of the refugee children in the world are out of school, a situation that is likely to worsen with the Covid-19 pandemic, assured the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Thursday.

In a report, UNHCR predicts that in the absence of immediate measures adopted by the international community to counter the catastrophic effects of Covid-19 on refugee education, the potential for millions of young refugees living in some of the worst communities most vulnerable in the world will be put a little more at risk.

Risk of school dropout

“After all they have endured, we cannot steal their future by denying them an education today,” United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in a statement.

UNHCR fears that after the pandemic, the risk of refugee children dropping out of school will increase, as many of them are unlikely to be able to resume their studies due to the closure of schools, difficulties in paying school fees. schooling, school uniforms and textbooks, lack of access to technology, or the obligation to work to support their families.

Special vigilance for girls

The UN is particularly concerned about the education of refugee girls because they were already less educated than boys and half as likely to continue their education at the secondary level.

In countries where the gross secondary school enrollment rate for refugee girls was already below 10%, all girls are now at risk of dropping out of school permanently, UNHCR worries.

The data in the report come from statistics from twelve countries that host more than half of the world's refugee children.

While the gross enrollment rate of refugees in primary education is 77%, only 31% of young people are enrolled in secondary education.

And only 3% of young refugees go on to graduate school.

Although well below the global averages for children who are not refugees, these statistics are nonetheless a step forward according to the UNHCR, which notes that secondary school enrollment increased by 2% in 2019.

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