Education Cannot Wait for Refugee Children in Uganda

The Government of Uganda, humanitarian and development actors came together around education for refugees and host-communities for the first time in Kampala last week. As a follow-up to the Uganda Solidarity Summit, and facilitated by Education Cannot Wait in close cooperation with UNHCR, other UN agencies, the World Bank, NGOs and donor partners, a collective agreement was made to develop a comprehensive response plan for the education needs of refugees and host-communities, which is expected to be launched in December 2017. During the workshop led by Education Cannot Wait and its partners, participants agreed to join forces to develop a four-year Response Plan for Refugee and Host Communities in December 2017, under the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF) led by the Government of Uganda and UNHCR.

Uganda is hosting 1.3 million refugees from South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Rwanda – the highest numbers of refugees in Africa and the third largest in the world today. Half of them are children. Refugee children are encouraged to study with Ugandan children in regular schools but the national education sector is itself hindered by underlying poverty, lack of teaching capacities, poor infrastructure, overcrowded classes, poor learning outcomes and girls’ limited school enrolment. Uganda’s First Lady and Minister of Education and Sports Hon. Janet K. Museveni referred to the ECW-led programme as a “godsend response for refugees in Uganda”. “Education Cannot Wait will help the government better the lives of our migrant brothers, sisters and children through the provision of education”, she said.