The Arab region has been more affected by migration and displacement than any other place on Earth, and this has slowed the educational progress of a generation of learners across the region, a new report says.
The report, titled “Arab States: Migration, Displacement and Education: Building Bridges, not Walls,” covers all levels of education and presents new case studies on internal migration in Egypt; international schools in the Gulf; double-shift schools in Lebanon; curricula for Palestinian refugees; and internal displacement in Iraq, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
“The report provides a comprehensive overview of issues for people on the move, which has no equivalent in terms of breadth and depth in the literature of the Arab States region,” Manos Antoninis, director of the team that produces the annual Global Education Monitoring Report for UNESCO, wrote in an email.
Separate Curricula for Migrants
The report, which was released last month at the WISE Summit 2019, in Qatar, highlights the importance of including migrants and refugees within national education systems.
Many refugee populations are now in segregated systems. For example, Sahrawi refugees in Algeria have a separate education system and curriculum. Malian refugees in camps in Mauritania still follow the Malian curriculum.
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In all Gulf Cooperation Council countries, which have the highest immigration rates in the world because of their need to import labor, migrants have to pay fees to attend public schools, with the exception of Bahrain. Private, parallel school systems are the norm, where students study the curriculum of their home country or some other international curriculum—but not the one of their host countries.