This blog was written by Rebecca Telford, Ed.D, Global Chief of Education, UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), on the occasion of World Teachers’ Day 2023.

“You can teach without a classroom, but you can’t teach without a teacher. Those are the areas we mostly forget. We focus on our students…in a class, but we forget the teachers most of the time.” – participant from Malawi, Teachers in Refugee and Displacement Settings: Policies, Practices & Pathways for Improving Teacher Quality & Workforce Sustainability study.

Today, as we mark World Teachers’ Day, it's essential that we peel back the curtain on an issue that remains largely ignored: the plight of refugee teachers. Since 1994, we've come together every year to celebrate the remarkable contributions of teachers worldwide, in collaboration with UNESCO and the International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 But how often do we pause to consider the unique challenges faced by those teachers who have been forcibly displaced from their homes? This year's theme, "The teachers we need for the education we want: The global imperative to reverse the teacher shortage," presents a critical moment to shine a light on these unsung heroes.

Persistent challenges beyond ‘’classroom walls’’ for refugee teachers

Imagine, for a moment, that you suddenly have no choice but to leave behind your homeland and everything you know. Now, picture arriving in a new country, only to discover that the teaching credentials you worked so hard for are no longer recognized. You are rendered invisible in your professional capacity. Even if you are fortunate enough to secure a teaching position, it comes with severely diminished professional status, minimal support to pursue qualifications and enter the national system, and reduced pay as the struggle to secure predictable multi-year funding for teachers or refugees continues to be one of the greatest challenges facing host country education systems. In many situations, refugee teachers are simply not accounted for at all in national planning around increasing the teacher workforce, budgeting or reforms in remuneration, retention or professional development.

UNHCR's forthcoming study on Teachers in Refugee and Displacement Settings: Policies, Practices & Pathways for Improving Teacher Quality & Workforce Sustainability reveals that teachers in forced displacement settings frequently navigate complex classroom environments with limited qualifications, support or remuneration.[1] In particular, for those teachers who are also refugees, opportunities are additionally limited because their work as teachers is infrequently protected by the labour standards of host countries. This lack of recognition and institutionalised support for teachers in refugee-hosting areas has negative implications for refugee and host community children’s schooling, achievement, and well-being.  

For teachers living and working in refugee camps around the world, these challenges are not hypothetical—it's their daily reality

We often laud the resilience of refugees for their courage and determination. But what about those who, despite being thrown into such challenging circumstances, rise to educate the next generation? They aren’t just educators; they’re beacons of hope, pillars of stability and symbols of normalcy for children traumatised by war and displacement. Their stories, from places like Chad and Uganda, tell of systemic challenges—whether it's inadequate pay leading to teacher attrition, insufficient teaching resources or limited training opportunities. And let's not forget female refugee teachers grappling with unique, added hurdles but who are crucial to increasing the likelihood of access to education for girls as well as providing immense academic and protective benefits.

A path towards better support and recognition of refugee teachers

Despite the grim reality, all hope is not lost. However, addressing the global teacher shortage in refugee settings demands swift, strategic action.

In line with the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) principle of burden and responsibility sharing, refugee-hosting countries must be supported to include refugees in the national education system. The way forward requires international collaboration and ideation, coordinated policy frameworks and establishing pathways that include refugee teachers.

The refugee teacher workforce is a key pillar of the inclusion agenda, and harnessing their contributions to teaching and learning is an effective way to mitigate the learning crisis during an emergency. International responsibility sharing is particularly important as over 70 per cent of refugees are hosted in developing countries facing their own challenges. Such solidarity and support would allow for predictable, reliable and sustainable financing for teacher salaries and, in turn foster fair and decent working conditions. This is what inclusion looks like. For example, regional policy responses, such as the Djibouti Declaration by IGAD member countries in East Africa must be supported, as it specifically recognises the important role refugee teachers play in providing education to refugee children and call for their inclusion in national education systems as well as providing the support and resources they need to succeed..

The 2023 Global Refugee Forum (GRF) presents a golden opportunity. We need international collaboration, a pooling of resources, and an exchange of expertise. The GRF’s Teacher Task Team’s work provides a blueprint for proactive measures — from establishing financial mechanisms that ensure continuous funding for teacher salaries, to promoting dialogue that involves educators in decision-making processes.

Furthermore, governments and international actors should create pathways that enable refugee teachers to attain recognised qualifications and continual professional development, in line with national standards. Non-unionised and underqualified refugee teachers should be integrated into national teacher programmes.  And in areas where language barriers exist, teachers must be provided with training and resources to bridge these gaps. Investments in education technology, such as UNHCR's Connected Education and the Instant Network Schools (INS) initiative with the Vodafone Foundation, are crucial. This initiative has successfully trained over 1,992 educators in using technology to deliver quality education. Evaluations show that this training, which covers topics from equipment use to digital awareness, boosts teacher confidence in using digital learning platforms.

Elevating support for refugee teachers is key to reducing growing education disparities

Supporting refugee teachers, who are on the frontlines of the delivery of education for displaced children, is crucial. Over 50 per cent of school-aged refugee children are out of school, and even those in school face unstable learning conditions. Without proper recognition and support for these teachers, the education of children affected by displacement remains at risk, and we will fall short of achieving SDG 4. A transformative education for millions of displaced children hinges on more consistent and reliable support for refugee teachers.

Photo credit: UNHCR/Diana Diaz

[1] UNHCR commissioned this study to explore and better understand the different profiles of teachers working in refugee and displacement settings – across the dimensions of teacher management, professional development, and well-being – to enable UNHCR, partners and state actors to provide teachers in these contexts with more targeted and impactful support, resources and capacity development.

Chris Henderson, Geneva Graduate Institute and NORRAG.

Teachers in crisis and emergency contexts regularly come under attack while carrying out their fundamental work, which jeopardises many teachers’ strong sense of resilience, purpose, and well-being.

Sadly, too many teachers around the world from all regions continue to be at risk. Since 24 February 2022, more than 3,500 educational institutions have reportedly been damaged or destroyed by bombing and shelling in Ukraine, according to the country’s Ministry of Education and Science (MoES); other reports also cite attacks on teachers themselves (GCPEA, 2023).

In order to monitor crises, globally, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) tracks data on the number of attacks on students, personnel and institutions representing Sustainable Development Target 4.a.3. Currently, there are data available for 101 countries between 2013 and 2021.  Figure 1 shows the five countries experiencing the most attacks on students, personnel and institutions . In 2021, teachers experienced the greatest risk in Myanmar with 426 attacks. The State of Palestine experienced 371 attacks, the Democratic Republic of the Congo suffered 302, and Afghanistan, Burkina Faso and Mali each accounted for more than 100 attacks. As seen in Figure 1, the number of attacks in Myanmar and the State of Palestine are rising at a rapid rate, meaning the risks that teachers face each day are rising, too.

Number of attacks on students, personnel and institutions, 2013 – 2021

Teachers are denied the safety and dignity that they deserve

In some contexts, teachers are threatened, abducted, or killed because they represent the state or it is due their membership in teachers’ unions. Teachers also suffer sexual violence during or after attacks on schools by armed groups. In other conflicts, teachers are killed or injured by explosive weapons on their way to or from school or in violent clashes between armed groups.

Where schools and universities are used as bases and barracks, these facilities can be targeted by opposing force air strikes or ground attacks, which also places teachers at considerable risk. Globally, incidents of military use of schools and universities more than doubled between 2020 and 2021.

Teachers are targets in many places

The effects of these realities on teachers and on the children and adolescents they teach are profound. For example, in Colombia, which witnessed 83 attacks in 2021 (UIS, 2023), teachers report that threats and acts of violence shift the quality of their teaching practices. Some teachers also report that violence alters their sense of trust and the authenticity of their engagement with pupils and their families. Some teachers further reported they avoid teaching certain subjects due to the violence that state-sanctioned histories can incite.

Some teachers who actively engage in peacebuilding efforts to curb the recruitment of their pupils into armed forces have also been targeted by paramilitary groups. In Colombia’s El Salado community, for example, all 25 teachers working at one school received messages from a paramilitary group threatening to extreme violence against the teachers themselves. Incidents like these are not isolated.

In Afghanistan, where the Taliban has re-ascended, there are reports of numerous education leaders being threatened, arrested, or killed for promoting girls’ education. Elsewhere, armed extremists like Boko Haram in Nigeria oppose western-oriented education and have threatened, killed, or abducted teachers to prevent them from teaching national curricula (GCPEA, 2022). Teachers share that their morale is deeply affected by attacks on their colleagues, with the daily insecurity that they experience making it almost impossible to teach.

In Syria, GCPEA describes how resistance forces target and forcibly conscript teachers. In Myanmar, teachers aligned with the resistance National Unity Government (NUG), which is in opposition to the current government, have been targeted. Over 40 teachers were abducted and killed in 2021 alone.

Violence has a negative impact on teacher recruitment and retention

Ring & West (2015) note how trauma from violent conflict and forced displacement compromises teachers’ capability to fulfil the functions of their roles. As teachers navigate complex stressors in their own lives, overcrowded classrooms of conflict-affected children and adolescents, who are in need of intensive psychosocial and socio-emotional support, leave teachers feeling unprepared and overstretched. This lowers teachers’ sense of self-efficacy – the belief that their actions have an influence on outcomes – which is a key predictor of teachers’ motivation to teach. In sum, violence and trauma influences teacher attrition and exacerbates teacher shortages where teachers are needed most.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo Wolf et al., (2014) report on the effects of poor teacher well-being on education system quality . As one of the first empirical studies to conceptualise and measure teacher well-being in a crisis context, their study applies the concept ‘cumulative risk’ to describe the adverse conditions and many stressors that affect teachers’ work and well-being. Their study shows a statistically significant and negative relationship between cumulative risk and teachers’ motivation to teach, meaning that the more risk teachers experience in their work, the less motivated they are to remain in the teaching profession.

Similarly, their findings demonstrate a significant and positive relationship between cumulative risk and burnout, whereby as a teachers’ exposure to risk rises, the more likely they are to report burnout. Thus, for teachers to be able to function to their fullest capacity, free from physical and psychological harm, teacher well-being and the prioritisation of teachers’ protection must be at the forefront of recruitment and retention-focused policy and funding.

We must act now to increase the appeal of the profession

These studies, among others, represent a crisis within a crisis. In contexts where schools and teachers are vulnerable to attack, and where inadequate pay, non-existent psychosocial support, and poor professional development compounds the violence that teachers face, the work of teaching is perceived as a risk in and of itself. Symbolic of this reality, in Kenya’s Dadaab Refugee Camp only 18 per cent of refugee teachers want to be teaching in three years’ time and just four per cent of host-community teachers aspire for the same.

Our failure to protect teachers from attack exacerbates the global teacher shortage. It undermines the attractiveness of the profession and forces many to abandon their roles. As World Teachers’ Day[1]  approaches on 5 October, our advocacy for quality education in crisis contexts must prioritise teachers’ basic human right to a safe and healthy working environment and the status and dignity that should be afforded to all members of the profession.    

Useful links:

• Crisis-sensitive Teacher Policy and Planning: Module on the Teacher Policy Development Guide
• Official World Teachers’ Day page

Photo: Nan Maw Maw Kyi. Teacher. Myanmar. © UNICEF/UN061811/Brown