UNHCR reports 5.8 million refugee children missed school in 2025 as funding drops

Global enrollment deficit

In 2025, 5.8 million refugee children did not attend school, according to an annual education report released in Geneva by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). The figure accounts for 44% of the estimated 13.1 million school-age refugees worldwide, with some agency data tracking up to 13.2 million displaced youth. The findings, published under the title "Pathways to the Future: Education, Opportunity and Self-Reliance", show that nearly half of all displaced school-age children remain excluded from formal education. UN High Commissioner for Refugees Barham Salih, a Kurd from Iraq who was once a refugee himself, called on donor countries to increase investment in education for displaced communities.

Education is protection. But it is also a pathway to opportunities and self-reliance. At a time of enormous pressure on humanitarian and development funding, education cuts threaten to reverse decades of collective investment and close opportunities to a generation of young people.

Secondary school drop-off and gender gap

Access to education declines sharply as refugee students grow older. While 65% of refugee children of primary school age were enrolled in primary schools in 2025, only 32% attended secondary education. Although boys and girls participate at roughly equal rates in primary classrooms, the gender gap widens significantly at the secondary level. The agency reported that poverty, security risks, early marriage, and domestic duties pushed an increasing number of adolescent girls out of classrooms before completing their secondary studies.

Record numbers in higher education

In contrast to secondary school bottlenecks, higher education enrollment among refugees reached 11% in 2025, the highest level recorded by the agency. More than 450,000 refugees enrolled in universities or vocational training institutions during the year, up from 9% in 2024. This growth keeps UNHCR on track toward its target of 15% higher education enrollment by 2030. The agency pointed to this expansion as evidence that targeted investments in displaced youth deliver concrete educational and economic outcomes.

Our ambition must go beyond keeping girls and boys in classrooms. Displacement should not determine the boundaries of a child's life. A child who has the opportunity to learn today will be better prepared tomorrow to contribute to society and provide for themselves, whether they eventually return home or build their future in the host country or seek opportunities elsewhere.

Widening funding shortfalls

Mounting budget reductions across donor nations now place existing educational programs under direct pressure. For 2026, UNHCR calculated a funding requirement of $8.5 billion to protect and support displaced populations, but received only $2.7 billion by the end of July, representing less than one-third of the needed budget. Earlier the same week, the agency cautioned that overall financial contractions could strip nearly 8.3 million refugees and displaced people of vital assistance. Traditional donor governments, including the United States and European nations, have reduced aid contributions. While the United Nations sets a benchmark for industrialised countries to allocate 0.7% of gross national income to development assistance, Germany currently contributes roughly 0.4%.