Refugee education between humanitarian and development assistance - a configurational comparative analysis across low- and middle-income host countries

In the context of increasing and ever more protracted forced displacement within a globally shrinking asylum and solutions space, long-standing efforts to bridge the humanitarian- development divide in refugee assistance are on a periodical high. Amongst others, such efforts translate into a decisive policy shift away from parallel systems of refugee education supported by the humanitarian sector, towards the inclusion of refugees in host country national education systems supported by governments and development partners.

This policy shift comes with a clearly defined end goal: increased self-reliance levels through improved education access and quality for both refugee and host communities. It comes without an evidence base including understanding of current policy and practice and their variation across countries.

Against this backdrop, this doctoral research project builds a cross-country baseline of current policy and practice across 41 of the largest low- and middle-income refugee hosting countries. It sets out to examine under what conditions developmental approaches can lead to better access outcomes in primary and secondary education for refugees. It finds these to be stronger national education systems in host countries with more favourable protection environments ensuring basic socio-economic rights, thereby reducing opportunity costs and increasing demand for education amongst refugees. Set within the global policy context, the project analyses degrees of inclusion of refugees in national education policy and provides insights on implementation paths pursued along with resulting education outcomes for refugees.

The conceptual starting point for this study is refugees’ position within the global system of nation-states which defines their opportunities to access education and ultimately transform their skills into self-reliance outcomes. It adopts a configurational comparative research design that enables a broader global perspective while not overlooking contextual specificities and multidimensional complexities. As such, the study makes empirical but also theoretical and methodological contributions to the field of refugee education.