Funding pressures could jeopardise recent gains in refugee education, with a new annual assessment finding that 5.8 million school-age refugee children were not in education during 2025. The total represents 44 per cent of the estimated 13.1 million refugee children of school age worldwide.
The figures put the warning in stark perspective: almost one in every two children in this group was outside the classroom last year. The assessment says deeper cuts to humanitarian and development finance could prevent still more children and young people from learning, although it does not put a number on any future losses.
A steep drop after primary school
Access changes sharply as pupils get older. In 2025, 65 per cent of refugee children of primary-school age were enrolled in primary education, compared with 32 per cent of those of secondary-school age. The difference highlights how reaching a classroom in the early years does not necessarily translate into a route through adolescence and beyond.
Foundational learning is another concern. The accompanying account says two in three young refugees arrive at primary school without the basic preparation that helps children participate in lessons. That can make an already difficult move into a new school system harder, particularly after displacement has interrupted earlier learning.
Girls face added pressure in secondary education
Girls and boys attend primary school at broadly similar rates, but the gap widens in secondary education. Poverty, protection risks, early marriage and other pressures are identified as factors associated with increasing numbers of adolescent girls leaving school. The warning is not simply about places at school: remaining enrolled can depend on safety, household resources and support over several years.
One 19-year-old who fled Sudan for Egypt is continuing secondary education with support and hopes to study technology at university. Her experience illustrates both what continued access can make possible and how vulnerable that progress may be when services depend on uncertain finance.
Higher education shows progress, but not equal access
There is a more positive trend at tertiary level. Refugee enrolment reached 11 per cent in 2025, up from 9 per cent a year earlier, with more than 450,000 refugees enrolled in higher education, the highest level recorded to date. Efforts to widen access include university courses, vocational training, connected learning, scholarships and education pathways in other countries.
Even so, access remains uneven. Refugee enrolment was below the national average in more than 80 per cent of reporting countries. In low-income and conflict-affected countries, 2 per cent of refugees were enrolled in higher education, compared with 13 per cent of nationals. The progress therefore sits alongside a substantial divide in who is able to continue studying after school.
Why support for host-country schools matters
The proposed response is not confined to programmes aimed only at refugees. As more refugee pupils learn alongside children from host communities, the assessment argues that national systems need sufficient teachers, classrooms, learning materials and finance for inclusion to work in practice. Investment in those shared systems could help avoid setting the needs of newly arrived children against those of local pupils.
The immediate call is to protect education funding while supporting the countries hosting refugees. The new data offer evidence of advances in primary and tertiary learning, but also show the scale of the unfinished task. With millions still out of school and secondary participation markedly lower than primary participation, the effect of further cuts would be felt most acutely by children whose education has already been disrupted by displacement.
