One of the lessons the Syrian crisis has brought to the fore is that protracted refugee situations have become the norm. This new reality has called for a shift from a short term humanitarian response focused on saving lives to a developmental one that addresses the long-term needs of both refugees and host communities. Lebanon and Jordan, as countries where the majority of Syrian refugees live outside refugee camps, have been testing grounds for ideas on how to make this transition.
A recent study on young people’s education and employment in displacement-contexts, conducted by the Centre for Lebanese Studies at Lebanese American University, and the Centre for Development and Emergency Practice at Oxford Brookes University, follows the trajectories of 1449 young refugees and nationals in Lebanon and Jordan. The study exposes the challenges faced by refugees in education and the rift between education and employment in both national and humanitarian policies.
Education and employment are two sectors where the response to the Syrian crisis attempted to move from a humanitarian to a development approach. However, after nearly ten years, there is ample evidence both in Lebanon and Jordan that shows the inability of current interventions to create development for both refugees and host populations.
According to a report by the Norwegian Refugee Council, after almost a decade of education interventions, over 40% of Syrian school-aged children are out of school or have never been enrolled in school, less than 2% are enrolled in grade 9, and 4% in grade 12. In Jordan, the numbers are similar according to a report by Investing in the Future.
Similarly, there is limited success in creating relevant employment programmes for refugees, despite the international pressure on making employment available for Syrians in both countries. In Lebanon, for example, around 53% of Syrian refugee households are estimated to have only one working household-member, which is substantially lower than among nationals.
Inherited education inequalities
According to our study, refugees are systematically worse off in the education system compared to nationals in Lebanon. Nationals are almost 20% more likely to achieve higher educational attainment compared to refugees. Refugees in both Lebanon and Jordan, though in Lebanon the situation is worse, were more likely to drop out from education without obtaining a certificate that qualifies them to join the job market.
The differences between refugees and nationals, most prominent in the case of Lebanon, must be understood in the local context where refugees have been accommodated in an education system that suffers from severe inequalities.
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