Access to quality education is commonly taken for granted for most students living in the United States. I never worry about not having a school to go to, a teacher who I can learn from, a book I can read, or a working computer with access to the internet. Yet according to Unicef, nearly a quarter of the world’s school-aged children (462 million) now live in countries affected by crisis.
The Syrian refugee crisis alone has resulted in half of Syrian children (2.8 million) being out of school with no access to educational opportunities across Syria and its neighbouring countries. Today is World Refugee Day and shocking statistics like this seem too big to combat. However, I recently learnt about an exciting and innovative partnership that is aiming to help change this.
I recently spoke to the team behind this partnership, who brought light to those statistics for me and illustrated the need for education in emergencies and how Pearson is getting involved to help.
As the world’s leading learning company, Pearson has a social responsibility to help improve access to quality education for students around the world. This is especially true in conflict and emergency settings. Pearson knows that high quality education in such settings provides enormous benefits. Despite all of this, I was shocked to discover that education in emergencies and conflicts remains the most underfunded of all humanitarian areas. According to Unesco, for example, only 2% of global humanitarian aid was allocated to education in 2014.
While Pearson has experience in developing and delivering educational products and services at scale, they have limited on-the-ground experience working in conflict-affected areas. However, this did not stop Pearson from wanting to tackle the challenge. They know they couldn’t do it alone so last year, they formed a partnership with Save the Children who have on-the-ground experience working in emergency situations. Through their three-year ‘Every Child Learning’ partnership, Pearson and Save the Children aim to increase educational opportunities for children affected by the Syria crisis.
The partnership consists of three pillars:
Monetary support
To meet immediate needs, Pearson donated £500,000 to fund the creation of two Save the Children education centres in Amman, Jordan. These centres will help to educate more than 1,400 Syrian refugee and host-community children.
Research and innovation of new solutions
£1m to work with Save the Children to research and develop new solutions to improve the quality of education for refugee and host community children in Jordan. This is the phase that the partnership is currently in. Pearson recently conducted in-depth field research in Jordan to understand education challenges for vulnerable Syrian and Jordanian families from their own perspective. Taking an existing educational product that Pearson has and moulding it to educate students in conflict would not work. These students have very different needs – both academically and psychologically – that need to be met by the education solutions developed through the partnership.
As a next step, Pearson and Save the Children are now in the early stages of using findings from the research to develop digital solutions and programmes to improve children’s experience in school and increase learner outcomes. Although the pilot is in Jordan, the ambition is that these solutions can then be adapted, scaled and replicated in other emergency and conflict-affected contexts globally.
Raising awareness of the importance of education in emergencies
Alongside Pearson and Save the Children’s innovation work, they also want to combine their voices and raise awareness of the urgency around improving education for children affected by conflict. Last month, Pearson and Save the Children partnered at the first ever World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul to advocate for increased educational access for child refugees.
I believe everyone around the world has the right to a quality education. For that reason, I’m really excited to see what solutions and approaches Pearson and Save the Children develop that can help children access education when they are in an emergency or conflict-affected setting. It will not be an easy task and there will be plenty of obstacles to get over on the way, but I can’t think of a more deserving challenge to overcome.
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