Globally, 251 million children are out of school, and even more lack basic literacy and numeracy skills (UNESCO GEM Report, 2024/25, pp. 140–141). Barriers to education are especially high for girls and women, refugees and displaced people, children affected by conflict, and those living in areas impacted by climate shocks.
Education is one of the most powerful drivers of poverty reduction, improved health and well-being, gender equality, and peace and security. It opens the door to opportunities, prosperity, and a more stable and just future. Investing in education in emergency and development contexts has a transformative and sustainable impact—especially for children—by equipping them with the tools to shape their futures.
Development funding towards education supports a wide range of interventions: it expands access to quality education, builds and improves school and education infrastructure, enhances safety and resilience to crises, breaks down social and economic barriers that keep children and communities from fulfilling their right to education, and strengthens the systems and community structures that are vital to successful education programmes.
A key focus is reaching those furthest behind—due to marginalisation or remote location. Additionally, supporting and strengthening education systems in low- and middle-income countries increases global learning outcomes and with it, contributes to greater stability and peace (GPE, 2024).
But education isn’t only needed when life is calm and stable. For children, learners, and families living through conflict, climate shock, or displacement, education is a lifeline. That’s why education is an integral part of humanitarian responses. It provides physical, psychosocial, and cognitive protection that can sustain and save lives. It brings hope, prospects, and a sense of normalcy when everything else has been uprooted. There is also a clear link between providing education and minimising risks of recruitment into criminal, armed, or terrorist groups – serving national security interests for all (CSIS, 2023). There are many more benefits that we explored during #GAWE2025 (have a look here – with a full campaign page to launch in May 2025).
Providing education during crisis, is what we call ‘Education in emergencies’ and it is a critical response through conflicts, violence, displacement, disaster, and public health emergencies. ‘Education in emergencies’ (often shortened to EiE) refers to quality learning opportunities for all ages, levels or types of education in situations of crisis.
Education in emergency interventions are particularly important for children, who would otherwise be robbed of their future. There are about 234 million school-aged children in crises worldwide requiring urgent support to access quality education – an estimated increase of 35 million over the past three years (ECW, 2025). And 84% of out-of-school children in emergencies live in protracted crises (ECW, 2022), meaning that they easily miss many fundamental years of education.
In Ireland, around 5% of Official Development Assistance (ODA) is allocated to education projects — amounting to €45.8 million in 2023 (Irish Aid, 2023). Additionally, education, particularly for girls, in development and humanitarian contexts has been identified as a key area for increased investment in the 2025 Programme for Government (Government Programme, p. 140).
This reflects strong and very welcome support — but much more remains to be done. We urge governments and donors around the world to ensure that education is fully integrated into all humanitarian responses and that it is funded adequately and consistently.
