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The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) recently launched the mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) Minimum Service Package (MSP). The MSP can address the MHPSS needs of populations affected by humanitarian crises by helping stakeholders coordinate MHPSS responses within and across sectors, addressing gaps, advocating for needs, and planning and implementing activities. It includes high priority MHPSS activities that can be implemented by education, health, child protection, Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and other sectors to ensure that the diverse MHPSS needs of populations affected by emergencies are addressed. A checklist of actions to inform planning and implementation, and a list of relevant guidelines, standards, and tools, are provided for each activity. This brief aims to serve as a guide for education professionals on how to integrate MHPSS into Education in Emergencies (EiE) programming. An overview of MHPSS activities that can be implemented in EiE contexts is detailed, in line with the MHPSS Minimum Service Package. Country examples and case studies are featured.

This study explores how sectarian language prevalent on Arabic media shapes common Arab people's perceptions of sects such as Sunni, Shiites, and others. A sample of Arabic sectarian expressions was collected from social media, print media and TV channels. A sample of students and faculty was surveyed. Sectarian language was analysed according to the components of perception (perceiver, target, and situation), the factors that affect each, and the social amplification and attenuation risk framework. Sectarian language used by students, faculty and Arab media is characterized by contempt, hostility, hatred, and intolerance of the sect(s) they disapprove of as they constitute political and ideological threats. Many Sunnis are afraid of the Shiite tide and Shiite Crescent. Hezbollah, Houthis, and Muslim Brothers are considered "terrorists" and "militias".

Digital learning has the potential to offer interactive and personalized learning for children, in and out of school, including the most marginalized. However, depending on programme design, delivery, and use, digital learning can also exacerbate learning inequalities. This report presents tangible findings on the implementation and use of digital learning to improve outcomes for marginalized children in Lebanon. This report focuses on the UNICEF-Akelius Foundation Partnership and its implementation of a digital course used on tablets and mobile phones for language learning of Syrian refugees in Lebanon. The report provides findings across three areas: First, the report investigates the digital course's use in a blended learning environment where it was used on tablets by students as part of traditional face-to-face classroom instruction with teachers. Second, the analysis examines the transition to remote learning where the course was used on devices owned by the household, supported by teachers remotely. Third, the report estimates the effectiveness of the use of the digital course during this period of remote learning from August-November 2020 showing positive results for language and art competencies.

Through strong working relationships and a responsive approach for systems strengthening, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Turkey has been able to effectively integrate its humanitarian and refugee-related programmes into its wider strategic approach to increase the potential for every child to learn. In doing so, UNICEF has worked closely with the government and partners to adapt national and local systems to better meet the needs of Turkish and non-Turkish adolescents, including the 400,000 Syrian refugee children and adolescents identified as out of school. This report presents how working sectors in Turkey accelerates learning for all adolescents.

The UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) prepares the "Global Report on Adult Learning and Education" ("GRALE") every three years in order to strengthen understanding of 'where we stand' as a global community, and to address the growing need for youth and adult education. The present report draws on data from "GRALE 4," published in 2019, to provide a regional snapshot of the progress made in adult learning and education in the Arab States between 2015 and 2018. Drawing on information from 18 Arab countries, it allows for a comparative analysis both among Arab countries and with the rest of the world, and provides insights useful to governments, education experts and policymakers in the Arab States keen to monitor and accelerate progress towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 on education and, indeed, the wider sustainable development agenda. The report reveals that adult learning and education in the region is strongly focused on literacy, with less attention given to other areas of adult learning, such as continuing education and professional development, and citizenship education. This suggests that, while further progress is needed in achieving basic education for all, the other dimensions of adult learning need to be given adequate attention to ensure provision that is comprehensive and relevant to the diverse needs of adult and youth learners. Furthermore, the report suggests that good governance, supportive political will and adequate funding are key to fully realizing the potential of adult learning and education for economic, social, technological, and societal transformation.

Conceived in order to provide a crucial baseline in research on internationalization in MENA, this report draws on available data to respond to both a real need for regional analysis and a direct demand from stakeholders, including tertiary education institutions in the region. Encouraging internationalization to be mainstreamed throughout MENA is the objective that this report seeks to achieve by way of stimulating regional policy dialogue on the subject. The report presents some global trends in internationalization and details its main benefits, before providing an overview of the current status of internationalization in the MENA region, including an in-depth analysis of student mobility. In its reflections on the way forward for the region, the report situates its recommendations in the context of COVID-19, within which, despite serious challenges due to a lack of attractiveness of the region, MENA may find a key opportunity. It suggests that adapting to the "new normal" through the deeper implementation of internationalization "at home" -- a dimension that does not require physical mobility and, being implemented within domestic environments, has a much wider reach -- may help enable the region to make strides towards catching up on the internationalization agenda. [This report was written with contributions from Consultants Lise Barbotte, Paul Cahu, Aurelia Hoffmann, Holly Johnstone, Mirna Mehrez and Marco Pasqualini.]

The gap between the levels of learning that education systems are providing and what children, communities and economies need, is growing. The breadth and depth of this learning crisis constitute the greatest global challenge to preparing children and adolescents for life, work and active citizenship. The lesson of the learning crisis is clear: the conventional assembly of education inputs is not improving learning outcomes. This presents a fundamental challenge to the way that governments, development partners and communities are managing and supporting education systems. A new, more radical approach that focusses on enhancing learning outcomes is long overdue and forms the basis for this strategy. The report also outlines the shift towards a greater focus on improving learning outcomes, including supporting the breadth of skills that allow young people to become agile, adaptive learners and citizens, equipped to navigate personal, social, academic, economic and environmental challenges.

In this chapter, we report on the experiences of learning English and identity negotiation of 14 Syrian adult Muslim refugees, both male and female and a variety of ages, recently arrived in the UK and enrolled at an ESOL college. Drawing on a range of data sources, we explore how the Syrian informants' religious identities acted both as a motivational factor and/or a hindrance for their investment and take-up of learning opportunities, both within and beyond the ESOL classroom. We also consider the implications of the 2017 Manchester and London terrorist attacks for the Syrians' sense of self and the restrictive implications for their English language learning. We argue that language teachers and practitioners who are critically informed about religion and religious identity can utilise the classroom not only as a space for language learning itself, but also as a site for learners to take up identities which they perceive to be more powerful and desirable, to voice their concerns and vulnerability, feel more accepted by host communities, and, consequently, to develop their investment in language learning.

In recent years, Jordan has made considerable progress in education and has demonstrated a strong commitment to improving the quality of provision for all learners within its borders, including refugees. Effective teacher management, aimed at building teachers' status, skills, motivation, wellbeing and retention, is a key policy lever that can help Jordan to achieve its aim of developing and sustaining a high-quality, inclusive and equitable education system for all learners, including refugees and vulnerable Jordanians. This policy brief aims to provide research-informed policy guidance for the effective management of elementary-level teachers in public schools catering to Syrian refugees in Jordan. The guidance is intended to support the Ministry of Education (MoE) and other key stakeholders at multiple levels of governance in developing and implementing teacher management policies, with the overall goal of improving teacher management in refugee settings. [For a related report, "Teacher Management in Refugee Settings: Public Schools in Jordan," see ED621829.]

World Education Services (WES) is a non-profit organization with over 40 years of experience in assessing academic credentials from more than 200 countries and jurisdictions and 40,000 educational institutions. Because many refugees are unable to obtain verifiable documents, the assessment of their qualifications calls for a different approach than normally used. WES launched its refugee pilot project in July 2016 with the target of accepting 200 applications by the end of that year. This goal was achieved and surpassed, and WES accepted additional applicants until the project was paused in May 2017 for program evaluation. This report analyzes the first 205 individuals who applied before December 31, 2016, 95 percent of whom received a WES Alternative Credential Assessment of their academic qualifications. To validate its approach, WES issued credential evaluation reports to a select number of Syrian refugees and conducted a thorough evaluation of the pilot program itself. WES recruited applicants by working through trusted referral partners who could screen them for program eligibility, explain the purpose of an assessment, and guide them through the process. Beyond testing assumptions and methods, WES also hoped to learn more about its refugee applicants, including their aspirations, intentions, and needs related to using the assessment to achieve their goals. This report describes the various elements of the project and includes analysis of the data to provide context for specific recommendations and next steps for this project. [For the full report, see ED586188.]

Refugee-background children face the challenge of acquiring a new language in the country where they resettle. Most studies of refugee language development occur among populations living in English-speaking countries, such as the United States, Canada, and England, yet many refugees have found refuge in countries like Turkey, which is home to nearly four million Syrian refugees, many children. These children face similar challenges as those in the studies mentioned above, yet are only recently finding representation in published works. Informed by hermeneutic phenomenology, this multiple case study explored three Syrian refugee-background students' experiences of learning Turkish as a second language in the K-12 classroom and their parents' views related to learning Turkish and Arabic. The data were elicited through classroom observations, semi-structured interviews with the students' parents and teachers, and student artifacts like written work, projects, handouts, and other class materials. The data were analyzed using a qualitative approach, specifically thematic coding and content analysis. The findings of the study shed light on the students' learning of Turkish as a second language in Turkey and the incredible support their families provided. [For the complete volume, "Refugee Education across the Lifespan: Mapping Experiences of Language Learning and Use. Educational Linguistics. Volume 50," see ED660722.]

Drawing from a three year ethnographic study with Iraqi refugees who had recently resettled to the U.S., this chapter examines how refugees' pre-resettlement lives shape their educational aspirations, while their (lack of) access to education in the U.S. shapes their understandings and embodiments of citizenship. Focusing on the lives of Samah, a high school graduate who hoped to pursue college education, and Nadia, a mother who aspired to learn English upon arrival to the U.S., I argue that refugees' encounters with public schools and adult literacy programs are critical to their ability to become full members of their new communities. Samah and Nadia experience various barriers to accessing adult education and language learning due to increasing market fundamentalist attacks on state institutions that are critical for refugees. Staging interventions to improve the lives of refugees involves bucking current resettlement trends that re-traumatize refugees and dispossess them of the ability to aspire to and realize better futures. Rather than following through with its current course of action, which has prioritized self-sufficiency; ever-decreasing case management periods; and the lack of bilingual case workers, we need to reinvest in refugee resettlement. Otherwise, refugees will continue to be dispossessed, again, of their rights. [For the complete volume, "Refugee Education across the Lifespan: Mapping Experiences of Language Learning and Use. Educational Linguistics. Volume 50," see ED660722.]

Theoretically framed at the intersection of language, identity, and transnationalism, this chapter examines how two Syrian refugee-background parents negotiated narrating and writing a bilingual and multimodal fictional story commonly used in Syria by parents as a bedtime story. Primary data included two audio recorded interviews: an oral narration of the story and a collaborative writing session with the author. Secondary data included ethnographic fieldnotes to contextualize the participants' transnational experiences and relations. An interview-based case study design was adopted and data was analyzed in an iterative manner. Findings suggest that while the parents were both invested in writing a bilingual story, they had different views about its purpose. While the father was focused on maintaining the story's authenticity, the mother reinterpreted and rewrote the story through the lens of her current life and understanding of parental roles within the context of the United States. Implications are presented with respect to how the two participants negotiate the ambivalence of writing the story between two frames of reference: Syria and the United States. [For the complete volume, "Refugee Education across the Lifespan: Mapping Experiences of Language Learning and Use. Educational Linguistics. Volume 50," see ED660722.]

Minority groups in the U.S. typically internalize language ideologies that associate English to social and upward mobility at the expense of learning their home language, let alone other languages. This chapter examines the role that the language ideologies of Syrian refugees in Southern Texas play in a dynamic of navigating a community where English and Spanish compete in different domains and are both necessary. This paper draws from a six-month ethnographic case study that included observations of and interviews with five Syrian refugees. Applying notions of language ideology and theories of indexicalities (Silverstein M. Lang and Commun 23:193-229, 2003) during data analysis, findings show how language ideologies inform Syrian speaker practices and their need to deal with English and Spanish in a multilingual city. Based on such findings, we argue that the extent to which Syrian refugees acquire English and Spanish and maintain their heritage Arabic language depends on their specific beliefs about language and language use in a multicultural, bilingual city. [For the complete volume, "Refugee Education across the Lifespan: Mapping Experiences of Language Learning and Use. Educational Linguistics. Volume 50," see ED660722.]

Whether a migrant, refugee or internally displaced, a child is a child. Every child has the right to an education. Yet many of the 50 million uprooted children in the world are in desperate need of education--not "despite" being uprooted from their homes, but "because" they are uprooted from their homes. Without education, how will they gain knowledge and skills to rebuild their lives? How will they be able to chart a path to a more peaceful and prosperous future for themselves, their families, their communities and the world? Finding ways to provide education for uprooted children will require funding, creativity and commitment. This report provides essential data and information on educational challenges faced by nearly 50 million uprooted children around the world. It notes that some of these children and their families migrate in pursuit of better education or job opportunities, while others are forced from their homes because of conflicts or natural disasters. Whether they are refugees, internally displaced people or migrants, the report concludes, uprooted children are still children who have a right to education--and the safety, stability and opportunity that education can provide.

Jordan has a longstanding history of providing the refugees it hosts with protection and essential support, including education. Today, the country is home to the tenth-largest population of Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)-registered refugees in the world, hosting around 750,000 refugees originating from Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Sudan as well as a further half million unregistered Syrians. In addition, Jordan hosts 2.2 million Palestine refugees under the mandate of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), most of whom have Jordanian citizenship. Ongoing conflicts, political unrest, droughts and famines in the region have meant that the influx of refugees into the country continues. Using a collaborative, two-phased, mixed-methods approach, the research examines how teachers are managed in policy and practice, focusing on schools catering to Syrian refugees outside refugee camps in Jordan. The case study identifies promising policies and practices and gaps in policy and practice in order to reveal potential areas for further development and successful implementation of policies to support effective teacher management in refugee settings. [For "Ensuring Effective Teacher Management in Refugee Settings: Public Schools in Jordan. Policy Brief," see ED621828. For "Teacher Management in Refugee Settings: Ethiopia," see ED607267. For "Teacher Management in Refugee Settings: Kenya," see ED626470.]

Since 2011, the Syria crisis has displaced internationally more than six million people. Jordan is the third-largest host country for Syrian refugees, including more than 212,000 Syrian refugees of school age by 2018. This country study explores the way in which the Government of Jordan and specifically the Ministry of Education has responded to the influx of Syrian refugees since late 2011 and the subsequent actions of humanitarian and development actors to support this response effort until late 2019. Jordan, as a country with a long history of opening its doors to neighbours fleeing conflict, provides an interesting case for this study. Jordan's legacy of hospitality has done much to prepare Jordanians to host refugees and has provided a signal to the international community that they have a willing partner in response. By capturing the experiences of stakeholders in Jordan, this study hopes to inform and incentivize humanitarian and development action in support of government ministries serving children and youth during crises. It provides policy recommendations to strengthen the leadership of ministries of education and collaboration with partners for quality education in crisis situations. [For another report in this series, "The Kenya Ministry of Education's Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Case Study. What Influences Ministry of Education Leadership during Crises?," see ED621855.]

This report is based on the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency's evaluation of the first final project reports of the first generation of CBHE projects selected for funding in 2015. Altogether 138 projects were funded in 2015 among which 39 were implemented in the South Mediterranean Region. The report's results are therefore based on a relatively small sample of finalised CBHE projects and are to be considered as preliminary and to be reviewed at a later stage. The analyses takes also into account the institutional monitoring visits and cluster meetings that were organised by the Agency as part of its monitoring strategy. The report is analysing the role of the CBHE action as regards the impact and sustainability of the funded projects together with their inclusiveness (participants with disadvantaged backgrounds and fewer opportunities compared to their peers). More specifically, the report will look into the institutional development of HEIs (HEI), their modernisation of study programmes and their teaching and learning methodologies, structural reforms and the strengthening of HEI's technical capacities. It will zoom into the opportunities created for individuals (students, academic and administrative staff) and third parties like enterprises, associations and NGOs. The report will also examine how the EU projects have influenced national policy developments in the education sector, mainly but not exclusively through 'Structural Projects'. Special attention is given to the strengthening of regional cooperation through CBHE projects that include two or more countries from the same Region. Finally, the analyses will be used to identify challenges and provide a set of recommendations for future reference.

Academically resilient students are those students who are academically successful, despite coming from the socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds that have typically predicted poorer educational outcomes. These students are an important group to study because if policymakers can understand what factors may have contributed to their succeeding against the odds, then they may be better able to support similar students in improving their academic performance. Raising the performance of socioeconomically disadvantaged students benefits both those individual students and the equity of the system overall. This brief uses 2011 eighth-grade data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) to explore (1) how prevalent academically resilient students are across education systems, and (2) what factors are associated with academic resilience within those systems.

The UNEVOC-UNESCO International Centre in cooperation with the Regional Bureau for Education-Beirut published the regional synthesis report on Component II of the regional project on entrepreneurship education in the Arab States (2009-2012). With support from the StratREAL Foundation, the project aimed at supporting Arab countries in the development of educational policies and programmes to include the concept of entrepreneurship in their formal education systems. The regional synthesis report on Component II of the initiative highlights the results and outcomes of the project in the four participating countries, namely Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Oman. The regional experiences reflect a growing importance to target youth competencies in a wider range, covering life skills, personal development, business development, and social entrepreneurial skills development. The report concludes that the four-year project contributed to an increased awareness on the importance of entrepreneurship education in the region as a means for knowledge and skills development related to business, industry, and self-employment through the education system and facilitated regional and national cooperation. Alongside the development of the regional synthesis report, a final evaluation was carried out to assess the outcome and impact of the activities implemented and captured the experiences and lessons learned throughout the project. The evaluation identifies effective methods to realize the integration of entrepreneurship education, with particular reference to concrete recommendations for follow-up action. The project has demonstrated the importance of a holistic approach to the development of a strong and innovative workforce in the Arab States. Two annexes include: (1) Project Coordinators/Focal Points; and (2) Summary of the Experiences and Activities of Entrepreneurship Education in the Educational Systems of Arab States. [For "Entrepreneurship Education in the Arab States. Final Evaluation Report," see ED560500.]

This study aimed to identify the extent to which Arab universities are keeping pace with modern technological developments in terms of the availability of e-Learning Management Systems and distance education, the extent of their use, and in which courses they are used. The author accessed the websites of 517 Arab universities and institutions on the Internet. The results showed that only 15% of Arab universities have e-learning management systems, including open universities, virtual universities, some universities of science and technology in Arab countries, and universities in the Gulf states, with the exception of religious universities. The number of e-courses offered is relatively small. Since the use of Learning Management Systems will lead to a quantitative and qualitative shift in education, and failure of Arab universities to use them will lead to their technological and scientific backwardness, the current study gave a number of recommendations for activating e-courses and distance education at Arab universities in a simplified, fast and inexpensive way.