Documentation UNESCO 2019 Global Education Monitoring Report

UNESCO 2019 Global Education Monitoring Report

(Ed/nc, Paris) On 20 November 2018, UNESCO’s 2019 Global Education Monitoring Report, “Migration, displacement and education”, was released in the presence of the Director-General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, in Berlin. The report shows that the number of migrant and refugee school-age children around the world today has grown by 26% since 2000. It highlights countries’ achievements and shortcomings in ensuring the right of migrant and refugee children to benefit from quality education, a right that serves the interests of both learners and the communities they live in.

Excerpt (Foreword of the Report) “The 2019 Global Education Monitoring Report has been brought together by a team of international migrants. Four of its members are children of refugees. They don’t deny that people look at migration – and migrants – from different viewpoints. Their research demonstrates the extent to which education can help open up those perspectives and bring greater opportunities for all.

For migrants, refugees and host communities, there is the known and the unknown. All that some people know, however, is deprivation and the need to escape from it; they don’t know whether there will be opportunity at the other end. In recipient communities, people may not know whether and how their new neighbours, wearing different clothes, having different customs, and speaking with a different accent, will change their lives.

Migration is characterized by both order and disorder. Societies often strive to manage population movements but nonetheless may face unpredictable inflows. Such movements may create new divisions, while others have demonstrably benefited both source and destination countries.

In migration flows, we see both will and coercion. Some people move proactively to work and study while others are forced to flee persecution and threats to their livelihoods. Recipient communities and politicians may argue interminably whether those who arrive are pushed or pushing, legal or illegal, a boon or a threat, or an asset or a burden.

There is both welcoming and rejection. Some people adjust to their new environment while others cannot. There are those who want to help and those who want to exclude.

Thus, around the world, we see migration and displacement stirring great passions. Yet there are decisions to make. Migration requires responses. We can raise barriers, or we can reach out to the other side – to build trust, to include, to reassure.

At the global level, the United Nations has worked to bring nations together around durable solutions to migration and displacement challenges. During the UN Summit on Refugees and Migrants in 2016, I called for investing in conflict prevention, mediation, good governance, the rule of law and inclusive economic growth. I also drew attention to the need for expanding access to basic services to migrants to tackle inequalities.

This Report takes that last point further by reminding us that providing education is not only a moral obligation of those in charge of it, but also is a practical solution to many of the ripples caused by moving populations. It must be, and should always have been, a key part of the response to migration and displacement – an idea whose time has come, as the texts of the two global compacts for migrants and refugees show.

For those denied education, marginalization and frustration may be the result. When taught wrongly, education may distort history and lead to misunderstanding.

But, as the Report shows us in the form of so many uplifting examples from Canada, Chad, Colombia, Ireland, Lebanon, the Philippines, Turkey and Uganda, education can also be a bridge. It can bring out the best in people, and lead to stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination being discarded for critical thinking, solidarity and openness. It can offer a helping hand to those who have suffered and a springboard to those who desperately need opportunity.

This Report points directly to a major challenge: How can teachers be supported to practise inclusion? It offers us fascinating insights into humanity and the age-old phenomenon of migration. I invite you to consider its recommendations and to act on them.”

The Right Honourable Helen Clark, Chair of the GEM Report Advisory Board