The United Nation’s Educational, Scientific, and Culture Organisation (UNESCO) in co-operation with the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) during a conference titled, ‘The Right to Education of Afghan Refugee Children in Pakistan’ at a local hotel on Thursday.
Pakistan has been hosting Afghan refugees for three decades now, with currently some 1.7 million registered Afghans living in the urban and rural areas of Pakistan, including women and children.
Pakistan is among the top countries in the world hosting such a large refugee population. To meet their basic needs, Pakistan has been facilitating the provision of educational services to some Afghan refugees for years.
Regardless of these efforts, the illiteracy rate is very high among Afghan refugee children. The aim of the conference was to raise awareness and highlight concerns to encourage stakeholders to achieve the ‘Education For All’ (EFA) goals by including Afghan refugee children through policy and capacity reform especially in refugee hosting areas, such as FATA, KP and Balochistan.
UNESCO Country Representative Dr Kozue Kay Nagata said in her opening remarks: “We have an objective to assure that education is accessible, especially to the marginalised. “We are geared to set up a foundation for future joint interventions with a common interest of ensuring that education reaches Afghan refugee children as we believe all children have a right to education.”
Stressing on the need to educate societies without discriminating refugees due to their status, she said: “This is a highly sensitive issue, which can not be solved unless we consider the fundamental issue of tackling the issue practically, especially by including marginalised groups like refugees in policy reform.”
UNHCR Country Director Neil Wright elaborated the educational situation among the Afghan refugees living in Pakistan. Wright said: “The quality of the education, including the quality of the facilities and the teachers among refugees shows that there is a long way to go. “Out of the current refugee population, 50 percent are 14 years of age, whereas 70 percent are 18. Only 55,000 PoR card holders have completed primary education.”
Wright added that a vast majority of the refugee children were born in Pakistan and they consider it to be their country.
UNESCO Bangkok Director Dr Gwong- Jo Kim stressed on different aspects of ‘Education for All’ and indicated that one of the reasons for the low implementation rate to meet the EFA goals is the challenges for the marginalised groups which include refugees.
