Angelina Jolie and UK call for support to protect education for refugee children

Angelina Jolie will join Baroness Sugg, the UK’s Special Envoy for Girls’ Education, to ensure refugee children are not forgotten in the global coronavirus recovery.

Baroness Sugg will announce £5.3 million of new UK aid to support the salaries of more than 5,500 teachers in 10 of the world’s poorest refugee-hosting countries, including Chad, South Sudan and Yemen.

She will urge the international community to protect the futures of the world’s most vulnerable children both during and after the coronavirus pandemic.

“Without urgent practical assistance, some of the children left without schooling worldwide due to the coronavirus may never set foot in a classroom again. We must find ways to try to ensure access to continuity of education for young people across the world. Ensuring education for refugee children is something we can make happen, if we all come together,” Angelina Jolie, Special Envoy for the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR, is expected to say.

Ensuring that children are not affected long-term by the interruption to their education during coronavirus is a priority in the UK and around the world. As the pandemic puts developing countries under increasing economic stress and limited resources are diverted to the health sector, there is a risk children will go uneducated as teachers go unpaid.

Without action, millions of children may be left without a school to attend in the aftermath of coronavirus, potentially undermining education systems in fragile and developing countries for a generation.

“Supporting every child’s right to 12 years of quality education is one of the best investments the UK can make to end the cycle of displacement, poverty, and conflict, as we recover from coronavirus. We urge our partners to match our ambition. The UK support announced today will help at least 300,000 vulnerable refugee children to continue their education,” Baroness Sugg, the UK Special Envoy for Girls’ Education, will say.

The UK support announced will help at least 300,000 vulnerable refugee children to continue their education.

Before coronavirus, 260 million children were out of school worldwide. Now, 1.5 billion children in over 150 countries are out of school.

For every additional year, a child goes to school, their future earnings can increase by 20%. Unleashing that potential, by protecting education through the crisis, will be essential to preventing the collapse of economies in the poorest countries deepening a global recession, making it harder for all of us to bounce back.

Original source: DFID
Published on 13 July 2020