Refugees and displaced learners

How we make a difference

Education Development Trust (EDT) is well known for its expertise in large-scale programme delivery and national system reform, including many programmes for the UK government and ministries of education around the world. A smaller and less well-known area of our expertise is in education for refugees and displaced learners.

EDT has nearly 30 years’ experience of supporting education in emergencies and refugee settings, and working in fragile conflict-affected states. We provide education response support in times of crisis and technical assistance for post-crisis capacity building, including programmes for Syrian and Palestinian learners and their teachers. We also build on the findings of our multi-country research projects, to develop programmes that enable teachers to meet the needs of refugees and displaced learners, and support governments with national education system reform.

Building knowledge through research

As a not-for-profit organisation, we fund our own programme of publicly available research, which makes an important contribution to the global evidence base on education and skills. Research helps us to understand what works. It guides our approaches and solutions to the challenges of teaching refugees and displaced learners, and enables us to make evidence-led recommendations to policymakers.

In 2018, EDT and IIEP-UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s International Institute for Educational Planning) jointly published a review of the literature relating to teacher management in refugee and displacement contexts. It found that teachers from these communities should be involved in the teaching of refugee and displaced children – but, increasingly, national teachers are being asked to do the work with only limited support and preparation.

This research project led to a six-year partnership with IIEP-UNESCO, in which we investigated promising policies and practices for teaching refugees and displaced learners. We published case studies on Uganda, Jordan, Kenya and Ethiopia and produced a series of three short films. Our findings enabled us to provide research-informed policy recommendations on the effective management of teachers in refugee and displacement settings.

EDT produced a range of rapid-response research reports for the UK government and other organisations during the Covid-19 pandemic, on education in emergencies and post-emergency recovery. We have also contributed to several other publications and research projects, such as NORRAG’s policy insight Refugee Teachers: The Heart of the Global Refugee Response. And we formally pledged support for refugee learners and teachers around the world at the Global Refugee Forum in December 2023.

Developing evidence-led policy and practice

By the end of 2022, there were 108.4 million forcibly displaced people around the world including 35.5 million refugees, over half of whom were children. As teaching quality remains the most important factor in students’ learning, managing teachers in refugee settings is critical to ensuring equitable and high-quality education for all.

In 2014, EDT merged with the Alexandria Schools Trust (AST), and we continue to use its funds to promote and maintain English language teaching across the Middle East. AST-funded programmes empower educators and learners to improve educational outcomes and support effective transitions into the workplace.

We support Ministry of Education supervisors to use the best available research-based evidence when coaching teachers, through our unique professional development Evidence-Based Supervision (EBS) programme. EBS helps build the capacity of supervisors and teachers in Jordan and Lebanon to use English as a medium of instruction in refugee and displacement contexts, while improving their teaching strategies and pedagogical practices.

In Jordan, in addition to EBS provision, we have delivered programmes on gender-responsiveness and teaching large class sizes. We are also developing the innovative Lifelong Learners programme, to empower Palestinian refugee students by focusing on English language skills and preparing them for the future in a rapidly changing world. The programme covers themes such as climate action, digital technology, financial literacy, careers, and wellbeing – and culminates in a symposium where students present their projects.

Meanwhile, in Lebanon, we work with several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in non-formal education settings to deliver programmes to Syrian refugees and their teachers, with English as the medium of instruction. This includes an English language development programme and the establishment of teacher professional development communities in partnership with NGOs.

We Teach Here - a series of films

We Teach Here is a film series that focuses on the lives of teachers working in refugee settings in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda. Some of these teachers are refugees themselves. Others are national teachers who are working with refugee learners. All are members of communities affected by crisis and displacement. We Teach Here removes our attachment to place to instead focus on people – it's about teachers who keep teaching, no matter what, no matter where. These are their stories: the lives they lead and the challenges and opportunities they encounter along the way.