The Right to Education Sarah Dryden-Peterson and Hania Mariën Abstract This chapter explores the intersection of global and national frameworks for the right to education for refugees and its realization in the form of access to schools. We examine international human rights intruments regional and national law and policy commitments vis-à-vis the right to education for refugees. In looking across States, we find that despite the widely embraced global articulation of the right to education for all children, the realization of the right to education is highly variable, being largely dependent upon their State of asylum. We also find that practices at the very local level, in communities and in schools, are a powerful force for realizing the right to education and need more attention in scholarly work. Keywords Refugee, education, children, multi-scalar Bios Sarah Dryden-Peterson is Associate Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Director of Refugee REACH, which fosters welcoming communities and quality education in settings of migration and displacement. Hania Mariën is a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. 1. REFUGEE EDUCATION: BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT At the end of 2018, 25.9 million people lived as refugees globally, and more than half were children under the age of 18.[footnoteRef:1] Of these refugees, 80 percent lived in a country that neighbours their conflict-affected country of origin, most of which are low- and middle-income countries.[footnoteRef:2] One third of refugees live in States categorized as Least Developed Countries.[footnoteRef:3] This geography of exile matters for refugee children and their access to education. Most refugee children globally seek access to education in situations where national education systems are over-stretched and where citizen children also struggle to realize their right to education.[footnoteRef:4] In 2017, only 61 percent of refugee children enrolled in primary school compared to 92 percent globally; and at secondary levels, only 23 percent of refugees had access compared to 84 percent globally.[footnoteRef:5] Yet these global access rates mask large variation: most refugees live in parts of States where school access rates are far lower. For example, in the Turkana region of Kenya, where most South Sudanese refugees live, only 11 percent of young people have access to secondary school compared to 48 percent in Kenya as a whole, a national rate that is still only half of global levels.[footnoteRef:6] [1: UNHCR, ‘Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2018’ (20 June 2019) accessed 20 April 2020. ] [2: Ibid.] [3: Ibid.] [4: Sarah Dryden-Peterson, Elizabeth Adelman, Michelle J Bellino, Vidur Chopra, ‘The Purposes of Refugee Education: Policy and Practice of Including Refugees in National Education Systems’ (2019) 92(4) Sociology of Education 346. ] [5: UNHCR, ‘Turn the Tide: Refugee Education in Crisis’ (2018) accessed 20 April 2020. ] [6: UNICEF, ‘Turkana Social Sector Budget Brief (2013–2014 to 2015–2016)’ (2017) accessed 20 April 2020.] Over the last ten years, both the nature of conflicts from which refugee children flee, and the policies designed to fulfil their right to education have changed. The conflicts from which they have fled are increasingly protracted. In 2011, the average conflict in low-income countries lasted 12 years and in middle-income countries 22 years.[footnoteRef:7] By 2016, the average length of exile for a refugee was estimated as between 10 and 25 years, up to three times as long as it was in the early 1990s.[footnoteRef:8] This long-term nature of exile, for many young refugees lasting the entire duration of their possible education, has altered the focus of global refugee education policy. Prior to 2012, in most settings, refugees were educated in parallel schools, separate from national students and often following the curriculum and in the language of instruction of the country of origin.[footnoteRef:9] The UNHCR Global Education Strategy (GES) 2012–2016 articulated a new approach to the education of refugees based on their inclusion in national education systems.[footnoteRef:10] The adoption of this new approach was swift. In 2010, only 5 of 14 of the largest refugee-hosting nation-States[footnoteRef:11] used the national curriculum and national languages of instruction to teach refugee learners but, by 2014, 11 of these 14 States did.[footnoteRef:12] Subsequently, the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants and the Global Compact on Refugees echo this inclusion effort.[footnoteRef:13] [7: UNESCO, ‘Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2011: The Hidden Crisis: Armed Conflict and Education’ (2011) accessed 20 April 2020.] [8: Nicholas Crawford, Simone Haysom, and Nadine Walicki, ‘Protracted Displacement: Uncertain Paths to Self-Reliance in Exile’ (2015) 20 April 2020; Xavier Devictor and Quy-Toan Do, ‘How Many Years Have Refugees Been in Exile?’ (2016) 43(2) Population and Development Review 355; James Milner and Gil Loescher, ‘Responding to Protracted Refugee Situations: Lessons from a Decade of Discussion’ (2011) Forced Migration Policy Briefing 6 accessed 20 April 2020.] [9: Sarah Dryden-Peterson, ‘Refugee Education: The Crossroads of Globalization’ (2016) 45(9) Educational Researcher 473.] [10: UNHCR, ‘Education Strategy 2012–2016’ (2012) accessed 20 April 2020.] [11: These 14 countries included Bangladesh, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Kenya, Lebanon, Malaysia, Pakistan, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Uganda, and Yemen.] [12: Dryden-Peterson (n 9).] [13: Volker Türk and Madeline Garlick, ‘From Burdens and Responsibilities to Opportunities: The Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework and a Global Compact on Refugees’ (2016) 28 IJRL 656.] International human rights intruments, including the UDHR, the CRC, the ICESCR, and the Refugee Convention, provide a framework for action for the right to education for refugees. As a social right, and as reflected in the ICESCR, the right to education is to be progressively realized and requires positive action and allocation of funding. Like all human rights, it is dependent on action by government, the availability of public resources, and enforcement mechanisms.[footnoteRef:14] The devolution of responsibility for the education of refugees to States through recent policy further entrenches the role of the State in respecting, protecting, and fulfilling refugees’ right to education.[footnoteRef:15] [14: Kurt Willems and Jonas Vernimmen, ‘The Fundamental Human Right to Education for Refugees: Some Legal Remarks’ (2018) 17 European Educational Research Journal 219.] [15: Dryden-Peterson, Adelman, Bellino, Chopra (n 4).] This chapter explores the intersection of global and national frameworks for the right to education for refugees and its realization in the form of access to schools. Though some scholarship has discussed the right to education for refugees, much of the literature surrounding children’s rights as related to migration and refugee status omits or only briefly addresses the right to education. As Bhabha explained related to child migrants, ‘state intervention has been pulled in different directions because of a clash between two opposing normative frameworks – immigration control preoccupations on the one hand, and welfare protection (including child’s rights) concerns on the other’.[footnoteRef:16] A prevailing focus at the State level on a child’s migration status, rather than status as a child, precludes attention to the right to education. As Pobjoy explains, States tend to focus on ‘a child’s status as a migrant (inevitably enlivening discourses of suspicion and immigration control) rather than their status as a child (more likely to evoke discourses of welfare and protection)’.[footnoteRef:17] Furthermore, the limited literature addressing the intersection of refugee law and the right to education for young refugees has focused on European countries as opposed to those States in which most refugees live.[footnoteRef:18] [16: Jason Pobjoy, ‘Art. 22 Refugee Children’ in John Tobin (ed), The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: A Commentary (OUP 2019).] [17: Jason Pobjoy, ‘A Child Rights Framework for Assessing the Status of Refugee Children’ in Satvinder S Juss and Colin Harvey (eds), Contemporary Issues in Refugee Law (Edward Elgar 2013).] [18: Helene Marie-Lou de Clerck, Julie Ryngaert, Estelle Carton de Wiart, Marie Verhoeven, Woter Vandenhole, Paul Mahieu, and Christiane Timmerman, ‘Undocumented Children and the Right to Education: Illusory Right or Empowering Lever?’ (2011) 19 The International Journal of Children's Rights 613; Willems and Vernimmen (n 14).] In looking across States, and with a focus on the low- and middle-income ones in which most refugee children live, we find that despite the widely embraced global articulation of the right to education for all children, the realization of the right to education is highly variable, being largely dependent upon their State of asylum. As argued elsewhere, we find that refugees’ access to education is ‘caught between the global promise of universal human rights, the definition of citizenship rights.. , and the realization of these sets of rights in everyday practices’.[footnoteRef:19] This tension between universal rights and local implementation is also both the genesis and ongoing preoccupation of global institutions and legal frameworks, including in education. [19: Dryden-Peterson (n 9) 473.] In the remainder of this chapter, we use two analytical frames to explore the right to education for refugees. The first draws on Somers and Roberts[footnoteRef:20] who argue that rights are multifaceted and exist at ‘multiple registers’. They define these ‘registers’ as normative aspirations, codification and doctrines, and the mechanisms and institutions of enforcement. The second analytic draws on what Bartlett and Vavrus[footnoteRef:21] call ‘multi-scalar’ research, which includes comparisons on three axes. One axis of analysis is vertical, comparing laws and policies related to refugee education at global and national levels. The second axis of comparison is horizontal across both regions and States. The third axis is transversal, over time, situating laws and policies of refugee education in historical and contemporary contexts. Our approach overall is sociocultural, focused on understanding how legal frameworks at multiple levels interact with refugees’ lived experiences of access to education. We also situate refugees’ realization of the right to education in the context of the marginalized nationals amid whom they typically live and seek access to education. We thus build on Bhabha’s conclusion that children’s lack of access to rights is often as a result of the ‘structures of inequality embedded in society [that] are not adequately corrected by the available resources’.[footnoteRef:22] [20: Margaret Somers and Christopher Roberts, ‘Toward a New Sociology of Rights: A Genealogy of “Buried Bodies” of Citizenship and Human Rights’ (2008) 4 Annual Review of Law and Social Science 385.] [21: Lesley Bartlett and Frances K Vavrus, Rethinking Case Study Research: A Comparative Approach (Routledge 2017).] [22: Jacqueline Bhabha, ‘Arendt’s Children: Do Today’s Migrant Children Have a Right to Have Rights?’ (2009) 31 Human Rights Quarterly 450.] 2. OBLIGATIONS FOR REFUGEE EDUCATION: A MULTI-SCALAR VIEW (a) Refugees’ Right to Education (i) Legal Obligations in International Human Rights Law Enshrined in the UDHR is the right to education for all (article 26), ‘without distinction of any kind’ including on ‘national…origin’.[footnoteRef:23] The CRC, with 196 States Parties, includes article 28 on the right to education, specifying that States must ‘make primary education compulsory and available free to all’, ‘with a view to achieving this right progressively and on the basis of equal opportunity’.[footnoteRef:24] While immigration status is not explicitly noted as grounds for non-discrimination,[footnoteRef:25] article 2 of the CRC provides that the Convention rights accrue to ‘each child within their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind’ including on the basis of national origin or other status.[footnoteRef:26] A child’s right to education is echoed in regional treaties as well. The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Banjul Charter), adopted in 1981, for example articulates that every person, regardless of status, is entitled to an education. Non-citizen children, including refugees, are clearly included within these global and regional articulations of the right to education.[footnoteRef:27] [23: UDHR, art 26.] [24: CRC, art 28. ] [25: UNESCO, ‘Right to Education Handbook’ (2019) 93 accessed 20 April 2020.] [26: CRC, art 2.] [27: African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (adopted 27 June 1981, entered into force 21 October 1986) 21 ILM 58 (the African Charter). ] The right to education in ICESCR requires States Parties to provide free and compulsory education to all children, with no limits on this right as related to national origin or other status.[footnoteRef:28] ICESCR recognizes States’ obligations to the rights outlined therein, including to education, ‘to the maximum of its available resources’.[footnoteRef:29] This availability of resources is critical to the realization of the right to education for refugees. It is the reason for which in many nation-States ‘for millions of people throughout the world, the enjoyment of the right to education remains a distant goal’[footnoteRef:30] now, as it was in 1966 when the ICESCR was adopted, and in 1999 when the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) issued its General Comment No 13 on the right to education. [28: ICESCR, art 2(2).] [29: ICESCR, art XX.] [30: Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), ‘General Comment No 13: The Right to Education’, UN doc E/C.12/1999/10 (8 December 1999) para 2. ] This General Comment of the CESCR recalls States’ ‘minimum core obligation to ensure the satisfaction of, at the very least, minimum essential levels’ of each of the rights enunciated in the Covenant, including ‘the most basic forms of education’, as outlined in General Comment No 3.[footnoteRef:31] General Comment No 13 moreover added the obligation to not only ‘ensure the right of access to public educational institutions and programmes on a non-discriminatory basis’ for primary education, but ‘to adopt and implement a national educational strategy which includes provision for secondary, higher and fundamental education’.[footnoteRef:32] Additionally, General Comment No 20 on non-discrimination in economic, social, and cultural rights explicitly notes that Covenant rights ‘apply to everyone including non-nationals, such as refugees’.[footnoteRef:33] While general comments are not legally binding in themselves, they often have greater legal influence than the UNGA resolutions discussed below, as they provide an authoritative interpretation of a binding treaty.[footnoteRef:34] [31: CESCR, ‘General Comment No 3 The Nature of States Parties’ Obligations (art 2, para 1, of the Covenant)’, UN doc E/1991/23 (14 December 1990) para 10.] [32: CESCR, General Comment No 13 (n 29) para 57.] [33: CESCR, ‘General Comment No 20: Non-Discrimination in Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (art 2, para 2, of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights)’, UN doc E/C.12/GC/20 (2 July 2009) para 30. ] [34: UNESCO, ‘Right to Education Handbook’ (n 25) 49.] (ii) Legal obligations under the Refugee Convention Article 22 of the Refugee Convention on refugees’ education provides that Contracting States ‘shall accord to refugees the same treatment as is accorded to nationals with respect to elementary education… [and] treatment as favourable as possible… with respect to education other than elementary education’.[footnoteRef:35] Though article 22 has been critiqued as being somewhat vague in its definition of ‘elementary education’,[footnoteRef:36] the right to education as outlined in article 22 is notably stronger than some other Convention rights because it applies as soon as a refugee is within the jurisdiction of a State, unlike some other rights that require lawful presence.[footnoteRef:37] Moreover, while some Convention rights are to be granted to refugees at the same level of provision as other non-nationals, the right to education is to be guaranteed at the level provided to nationals.[footnoteRef:38] [35: Refugee Convention, art 22.] [36: Samuel K N Blay and Martin B Tsamenyi, ‘Reservations and Declarations under the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees’ (1990) 2 IJRL 527, 547; James C Hathaway, The Rights of Refugees under International Law (CUP 2005) 596.] [37: Hathaway (n 35) 597.] [38: Ibid 595.] While 146 nation-States are party to the Refugee Convention and 147 to the 1967 Protocol, there are notable exceptions, including States where large numbers of people seek asylum: India, Lebanon, Malaysia and Pakistan, for example. In addition, some States have made expansive reservations to these treaties. Egypt, for example, has a sweeping reservation to article 22 on education, objecting to the provision as it ‘consider[s] the refugee as equal to the national’.[footnoteRef:39] Ethiopia, Malawi, Monaco, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, Zambia, and Zimbabwe have also registered their reservations about article 22, noting that they consider access to education for refugees a recommendation but not a legally binding obligation.[footnoteRef:40] [39: ‘Convention relating to the Status of Refugees: Declarations and Reservations’ accessed 20 April 2020.] [40: Ibid.] (iii) Soft Law and Policy Commitments Various UN bodies have consistently reaffirmed the right to education. Recent pronouncements have contained specific focus on refugees and other children affected by armed conflict, pointing out that the progressive realization of the right to education for these groups is particularly challenging. Human Rights Council (HRC) Resolution 8/4 of June 2008 registers ‘deep concern’ about the almost half of out of school children globally who live in conflict-affected fragile States and calls upon States to guarantee the right to education for marginalized groups, including refugees.[footnoteRef:41] The Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education’s report focuses on the need for adequate educational legislation to guarantee the right to education for migrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers and, in particular, notes that human rights law ‘does not sufficiently address the question of binding obligations of States to take positive measures and it is largely unclear which distinctions between migrants and citizens are admissible and which are not’.[footnoteRef:42] In response to this report, in July 2010, the UNGA passed a resolution on the right to education in emergencies.[footnoteRef:43] This resolution recognizes ‘that a large proportion of the world’s children out of school live in conflict-affected areas and in natural-disaster-stricken regions, and that this is a serious challenge to the fulfilment of the international education goals, including millennium development goal 2’.[footnoteRef:44] It calls upon States to make resources available for education in emergency settings, but does not address the particularities of the status of refugees.[footnoteRef:45] [41: Human Rights Council, ‘The Right to Education’, UN doc A/HRC/RES/8/4 (18 June 2008) para 7b.] [42: Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, ‘The Right to Education of Migrants, Refugees and Asylum-Seekers’, UN doc A/HRC/14/25 (16 April 2010). ] [43: UNGA, ‘The Right to Education in Emergency Situations’, UN doc A/RES/64/290 (27 July 2010).] [44: Ibid preamble.] [45: Ibid paras 7–8.] Again in July 2019, the UNGA affirmed the right to education, following up to the HRC resolution 8/4 of 2008.[footnoteRef:46] This new resolution continues to recognize the ‘negative impact of climate change, natural disasters, conflict and crisis on the full realization of the right to education, the fact that a large proportion of the world’s out-of-school population lives in conflict-affected areas’[footnoteRef:47] and ‘[c]alls upon States to take all necessary measures, including sufficient budgetary allocations, to ensure accessible, inclusive, equitable and non-discriminatory quality education, and to promote learning opportunities for all, paying particular attention to girls, marginalized children, older persons, persons with disabilities and all vulnerable and marginalized groups, including those affected by humanitarian emergencies and conflict situations’.[footnoteRef:48] The resolution does not specifically address refugee children. [46: Human Rights Council, ‘The Right to Education: Follow-up to Human Rights Council Resolution 8/4’, UN doc A/HRC/41/L.26 (9 July 2019).] [47: Ibid preamble.] [48: Ibid para 10.] The UNHCR Executive Committee (ExCom), composed of Contracting States to the Refugee Convention as well as non-party States hosting a significant number of refugees, has discussed the right to education for refugee children in several recent Conclusions. UNHCR ExCom Conclusion No 107 (2007) reaffirmed refugee children’s right to education calling upon States ‘individually and collectively, to intensify their efforts, in co-operation with the High Commissioner, to ensure that all refugee children benefit from primary education of a satisfactory quality, that respects their cultural identity and is oriented towards an understanding of the country of asylum’.[footnoteRef:49] ExCom Conclusion No 47 (1987) moved beyond a recommendation for primary education to suggest that ‘the High Commissioner consider the provision of post-primary education within the general programme of assistance’.[footnoteRef:50] However, similar to the mentioned above pronouncements of different UN bodies, these UNHCR ExCom Conclusions are non-binding. [49: UNHCR ExCom Conclusion No 107 (LVIII), ‘Children at Risk’ (2007).] [50: UNHCR ExCom Conclusion No 47 (XXXVIII), ‘Refugee Children’ (1987). ] The right to education for refugees has recently been explicit in global education policy frameworks. Unlike precursor Education for All and the Millennium Development Goals, the key policy document associated with Sustainable Development Goal 4, the Incheon Declaration and Education 2030: Framework for Action, specifically references the educational rights and needs of refugee children.[footnoteRef:51] Paragraph 11 of the Incheon Declaration states: [51: UNESCO, ‘Education 2030: Incheon Declaration and Framework for Action for the Implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 4’, UN doc ED-2016/WS/28 (2016). ] Furthermore, we note with serious concern that, today, a large proportion of the world’s out-of-school population lives in conflict-affected areas, and that crises, violence and attacks on education institutions, natural disasters and pandemics continue to disrupt education and development globally. We commit to developing more inclusive, responsive and resilient education systems to meet the needs of children, youth and adults in these contexts, including internally displaced persons and refugees. The right to education has become more prominent in global refugee policies. The 2016 New York Declaration reasserts the right to education, for both primary and secondary schooling,[footnoteRef:52] while the Global Compact on Refugees commits ‘to expand and enhance the quality and inclusiveness of national education systems’.[footnoteRef:53] The shift to focus on host States as responsible for refugee education has also been articulated at regional levels. In 2017, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Member States issued the Djibouti Declaration on Refugee Education with the goal to ‘integrate education for refugees and returnees into National Education Sector Plans by 2020’.[footnoteRef:54] In 2018, UNESCO and the African Union issued the Nairobi Declaration and Call for Action on Education committed to ‘making our educational systems more responsive, flexible and resilient to include refugees and internally displaced people, and increasing investment for Education in Emergencies and Crises’.[footnoteRef:55] Latin American and Caribbean States issued the 2016 Buenos Aires Declaration committed to ‘making our education systems more responsive, adaptable and resilient in order to meet the rights and satisfy the needs of migrants and refugees’.[footnoteRef:56] And in 2018, States in the Arab region adopted the Dubai Roadmap for Education 2030, stating that they ‘remain dedicated to the inclusion of refugee children and youth systematically in national educational planning processes in order to monitor their participation and educational attainment’.[footnoteRef:57] [52: New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, paras 39, 57, 59, 81.] [53: Global Compact on Refugees, para 68.] [54: IGAD Member States (Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Uganda), ‘Djibouti Declaration on Regional Conference on Refugee Education in IGAD Member States: Regional Quality Education Srandards and Inclusion into National Systems for Refugee Children in line with CRRF, SDG 4 and Agenda 2063 on Education’ (14 December 2017).] [55: UNESCO and African Union, ‘Nairobi Declaration and Call for Action on Education: Bridging Continental and Global Education Frameworks for the Africa We Want’ (2018) 4g accessed in 21 April 2020.] [56: UNESCO, ‘Buenos Aires Declaration: Regional Meeting of Education Ministers of Latin America and the Caribbean’ (2017) para 15 accessed in 21 April 2020.] [57: UNESCO, ‘The Dubai Roadmap for Education 2030 in the Arab Region (2017–2018)’ (2018) para 3 accessed in 21 April 2020.] (b) National Implementation National commitments to the right to education in international human rights law instruments vary. To show these patterns, we examine six of top ten countries hosting the largest number of refugees globally, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Uganda, as well as Tanzania and Kenya, two States on the forefront of provision of education to refugees over the past several decades.[footnoteRef:58] All of these States are States Parties to the CRC, and none of them have made reservations pertaining to the right to education.[footnoteRef:59] Similarly, all of these States are States Parties to the ICESCR, with Turkey submitting a reservation to article 13(3)–(4) and Bangladesh—to articles 10 and 13.[footnoteRef:60] Out of these eight States, five are the Contracting States to the Refugee Convention,[footnoteRef:61] Bangladesh, Jordan, and Lebanon are not, and only Ethiopia have submitted a reservation to article 22(1).[footnoteRef:62] [58: Jeff Crisp, Christopher Talbot, and Daiana Cipollone (eds), Learning for a Future: Refugee Education in Developing Countries (UNESCO 2003); Marion Fresia and Andreas Von Känel, ‘Beyond Space of Exception? Reflections on the Camp through the Prism of Refugee Schools’ (2015) 29 JRS 250; Christine Monaghan, ‘Educating for Durable Solutions? Histories of Schooling in Kenya’s Dadaab and Kakuma Refugee Camps’ (DPhil thesis, University of Virginia 2015).] [59: ‘Convention on the Rights of the Child, Status as at 1 June 2020’: accessed 1 June 2020. ] [60: ‘International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Status as at 1 June 2020’: accessed 1 June 2020.] [61: ‘Convention relating to the Status of Refuges, Status as at 1 June 2020’: accessed 1 June 2020.] [62:  Ibid: ‘The provisions of articles 8, 9, 17 (2) and 22 (1) of the Convention are recognized only as recommendations and not as legally binding obligation’.] In a recent study of Education Sector Plans across 41 refugee-hosting nation-States, Zeus found that only one third make reference to refugees.[footnoteRef:63] Whether refugees are mentioned specifically in national legislation or policy or not, their right to education generally requies that they be terated equally with nationals. Yet national treatment as regards the right to education is rarely granted, across the range of commitments to international instruments. For example, while net primary and secondary enrollment for citizens in Uganda is 91% and 22%, it is 71% and 12% for refugees[footnoteRef:64]; for citizens in Ethiopia, 85% at primary and 31% at secondary, compared to 67% and 9% respectively for refugees[footnoteRef:65]; and for citizens in Jordan 92% at primary and 64% at secondary, compared to 57 for refugees at primary and secondary combined.[footnoteRef:66] [63: Barbara Zeus, ‘Refugee Education between Humanitarian and Development Assistance: A Configurational Comparative Analysis across Low- and Middle-Income Host Countries’ (DPhil thesis, Oxford University 2019) 120.] [64: National data from the World Bank Data Bank, 2013 for primary and 2010 for secondary; refugee data from 2019 from UNHCR, UNHCR Monthly Protection Update Education July 2019 2019 ] [65: National data from the World Bank Data Bank, 2015 for primary and secondary; refugee data from 2018 from Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Ministry of Education, Education Statistics Annual Abstract 2010 E.C. (2017/18) 2018] [66: National data from the World Bank Data Bank, 2004 for primary and 2017 for secondary; refugee data from 2018 from Brussels Conference, We Made a Promise: Ensuring Learning Pathways and Protection for Syrian Children and Youth 2018.] Furthermore, recent research points to ways in which non-discrimination in education is in fact not about education that is the same for refugees and nationals.[footnoteRef:67] Instead, ‘equal opportunity’ as stipulated in article 28 of the CRC requires differentiation. Achieving the four As, as outlined in General Comment 13 on the Right to Education – availability, accessibility, acceptability, and adaptability[footnoteRef:68] – may justify differential treatment of children, such as mother-tongue instruction,[footnoteRef:69] separate classes to catch up on missed schooling, psycho-social needs,[footnoteRef:70] and culturally relevant curriculum.[footnoteRef:71] [67: Dryden-Peterson, Adelman, Bellino, Chopra (n 4).] [68: CESCR, ‘General Comment No 13’ (n 29) para 8.] [69: Celia Reddick and Sarah Dryden-Peterson, ‘Refugee Education and Medium of Instruction: Tensions in Theory, Policy and Practice’ in Carol Benson and Kimmo Kosonen (eds), Language Issues in Comparative Education (Springer 2013); Martha Bigelow, Mogadishu on the Mississippi : Language, Racialized Identity, and Education in a New Land (Wiley-Blackwell 2010).] [70: Selcuk R Sirin and Lauren Rogers-Sirin, The Educational and Mental Health Needs of Syrian Refugee Children (Migration Policy Institute 2015).] [71: Michelle J Bellino and Sarah Dryden-Peterson, ‘Inclusion and Exclusion within a Policy of National Integration: Refugee Education in Kenya’s Kakuma Refugee Camp’ (2019) 40 British Journal of Sociology of Education 222; Mary Mendenhall and others, ‘Quality Education for Refugees in Kenya: Pedagogy in Urban Nairobi and Kakuma Refugee Camp Settings’ (2015) 1 Journal on Education in Emergencies 92; Maha Shuayb, ‘The Art of Inclusive Exclusions: Educating the Palestinian Refugee Students in Lebanon’ (2014) 33 RSQ 20. ] (c) Local Implementation Across global, national, and sub-national data, we see variation. While refugees are typically unable to access education at the same rate as nationals,[footnoteRef:72] local rates do not always follow the patterns that might be expected by global and national frameworks and laws. Practices at the very local level are a critical element to complement global, regional and national-level analysis. Indeed, normative commitments at the local and individual level are a powerful force for realizing the right to education. Refugee youth, teachers and school leaders in areas where refugees live often describe the ‘felt responsibility’ of ensuring refugees’ right to education.[footnoteRef:73] There is no systematic data on how and with what frequency decisions to permit – or deny – refugees admission to schools occur. However, a few examples from our own field-based data are illustrative.[footnoteRef:74] [72: See eg Bellino and Dryden-Peterson (n 81); Sarah Dryden-Peterson, ‘Refugee Education in Countries of First Asylum: Breaking Open the Black Box of Pre-resettlement Experiences’ (2015) 14 Theory and Research in Education 131; David Smawfield, ‘A Comparative Study of the Provision of Primary Education for Mozambican Refugees in Malawi and Zambia’ (1993) 6 JRS 286; Zeus (n 70).] [73: See eg Elizabeth Adelman and Sarah Dryden-Peterson, ‘The Role of the Nation-State in Education Provision: A Vertical Policy Analysis of the Integration of Syrian Refugee Students into Lebanese Public Schools’ (under review). ] [74: All data collected for these studies was approved under the Harvard University Institutional Review Board. All names used are pseudonyms.] i. Uganda, 2003 The Kyaka area of Uganda first hosted refugees in the late 1950s and early 1960s when thousands of Tutsi fled to Uganda in the aftermath of the Hutu Revolution and the installation of an all-Hutu government in post-colonial Rwanda.[footnoteRef:75] The Kyaka II refugee settlement was created in 1959, and many of the refugees who came at that time stayed in protracted exile until 1994, when some, but not all, returned to Rwanda. After 1994, the Kyaka II settlement hosted primarily Congolese refugees and ethnically Hutu Rwandans. In force at this time in Uganda was the 1960 Control of Alien Refugees Act (CARA), which predated Uganda’s ratification of the Refugee Convention and made no provision for refugees’ access to education. Nonetheless, as the District Inspector of Schools for Kyaka County explained, the schools in the settlement ‘are like any other schools’.[footnoteRef:76] The District Education Officer for Kyenjojo District, in which Kyaka is located, further explained: ‘I grew up and found that these people are studying together…. [T]here is no way you can say that refugees go there’, he pointed to one side, ‘and those who are not refugees go there’, he pointed in the other direction. ‘[T]he goal is to have the child educated. So we don’t separate them.’[footnoteRef:77] [75: Yolamo Barongo, ‘Problems of Integrating Banyarwanda Refugees Among Local Communities in Uganda’ in Gingyera Pinycwa (ed), Uganda and the Problem of Refugees (Makerere University Press 1998); Katy Long, ‘Rwanda's First Refugees: Tutsi Exile and International Response 1959–64’ (2012) 6 Journal of Eastern African Studies 211.] [76: Interview by Sarah Dryden-Peterson with District Inspector of Schools (Kyaka, Uganda, 4 April 2003).] [77: Interview by Sarah Dryden-Peterson with District Education Officer (Kyenjojo, Uganda, 25 April 2003)] ii. Kenya, 2013 At a primary school, in the Eastleigh neighbourhood of Nairobi, Kenya, is a Kenyan government school that also serves refugees. In 2013, there were 30 teachers at the school, all of whom were Kenyan nationals. Of the 782 students, 73 percent were refugees, mostly with origins in Somalia and some in Ethiopia. At the school, refugees are admitted ‘on site’, with no questions asked. Teachers and students explained that many come ‘disguised’ as Kenyans, given challenges they have faced trying to register at some schools; some borrow identification cards from neighbours; and many produce a ‘mandate’, the UNHCR-issued card identifying them as registered refugees. As the Deputy Head Teacher explained, however, this school admits all children even without these papers. Not even a birth certificate is a condition of enrolment, he said. The rationale for this process is clear to the Deputy Head Teacher: ‘They have a right to education’, he stated.[footnoteRef:78] [78: Interview by Sarah Dryden-Peterson with Deputy Head Teacher (Eastleigh, Kenya, 28 May 2013). See also Sarah Dryden-Peterson and Lucy Hovil, ‘A Remaining Hope for Durable Solutions: Local Integration of Refugees and their Hosts in the Case of Uganda’ (2004) 22 Refuge 26.] This right to education in Nairobi, while clearly perceived by the Deputy Head Teacher at this school, was not as obvious in national legal frameworks and in the experiences of students at this school who had also sought access to other schools. Although Kenya is a Contracting State to the Refugee Convention, government directives issued between 2012 and 2014 promulgated an encampment policy, whereby residence in urban areas was no longer permitted, all refugees needed to reside only in designated camps, and that ‘[e]very refugee and asylum seeker shall… not leave the designated refugee camp without the permission of the Refugee Camp Officer’.[footnoteRef:79] Despite a 2013 High Court ruling that this government directive was in violation of the national Constitutional right to freedom of movement,[footnoteRef:80] a later 2014 ruling upheld the directive of encampment.[footnoteRef:81] A 2014 press statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Interior and Coordination of National Government on Refugee and National Security Issues further directed that ‘All Kenyans are requested to report to the Police any refugees and/or illegal immigrants found outside the designated refugee camps’. Despite being in contradiction of these directives, the Deputy Head Teacher at this school acted on a ‘felt responsibility’ to uphold the right to education for the children who sought admission to his school.[footnoteRef:82] The 2013 High Court ruling, however, was later upheld on appeal in 2017.[footnoteRef:83] As a result, the most recent and the highest Kenyan judicial authority confirms that refugees have the right to freedom of movement.[footnoteRef:84] [79: Republic of Kenya, Security Laws (Amendment) Act No. 19 of 2014 (Republic of Kenya 2014)] [80: Kituo Cha Sheria, Abebe Dadi Tully, Ahmed Bashir Mohamed, Eugene Bwimana, Dachassa Galdi Nure, Muhima Sebihendo Joh, Mbuzukongire Nzabona and Said Abdullahi Abukar v the Attorney General, Petition Nos 19 and 115 of 2013, High Court of Kenya (26 July 2013).] [81: Samow Mumin Mohamed and Others v Cabinet Secretary, Minister of Interior Security and Co-ordination and others, Petition No 206 of 2011, High Court of Kenya (30 June 2014) ] [82: See also Mendenhall and others (n 81) 2015.] [83: Attorney General v Kituo Cha Sheria & 7 Others [2017] eKLR.] [84: Marina Sharpe, The Regional Law of Refugee Protection in Africa (OUP 2018) 151.] iii. Lebanon, 2016 In 2016, over 1.4 million Syrians registered with UNHCR lived in Lebanon, equivalent to one-third of the Lebanese population.[footnoteRef:85] Lebanon is not a Contracting State to the Refugee Convention and has not recognized these Syrians are refugees. The Government of Lebanon generally refers to Syrians as ‘persons displaced from Syria’ (a term which includes Palestine refugees from Syria, Lebanese returnees from Syria, and registered/unregistered Syrian nationals); ‘displaced Syrians’ (referring only to Syrian nationals); or ‘persons registered as refugees by UNHCR’.[footnoteRef:86] The government has required that all education of Syrians take place within public schools in Lebanon, implementing a second shift program in 2013 whereby Lebanese children attended school in the morning and Syrian children used the same school buildings for an afternoon shift.[footnoteRef:87] Enrolment was highest in primary education, particularly grades one and two. At the secondary level, less than 2% of Syrians of this age group enrolled in school.[footnoteRef:88] [85: Eric Le Borgne, Thomas Jacobs, and Paul Barbour, ‘Lebanon: Promoting Poverty Reduction and Shared Prosperity’ (World Bank 2016) accessed in 21 April 2020.] [86: Government of Lebanon and United Nations, Lebanon Crisis Response Plan 2017–2020 (Government of Lebanon 2017).] [87: Adelman and Dryden-Peterson (n 83); Maha Shuayb, Nisrine Makkouk, and Suha Tutunji, ‘Widening Access to Quality Education for Syrian Refugees: The Role of Private and NGO Sectors in Lebanon (Center for Lebanese Studies 2014) accessed in 21 April 2020.] [88: Lebanon Ministry of Education and Higher Education, RACE Lebanon: Presentation to Education Partners Meeting (MEHE 2017).] A critical barrier for Syrian young people in accessing their right to education in Lebanon was establishing equivalency for their prior education.[footnoteRef:89] By policy, school directors were to accept only Lebanese Brevet (Grade 9) certificates or documentation certified by the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE), a process that was slow and unpredictable. Amal, a young Syrian who arrived in Lebanon in 2012, did not have this official approval. Yet, as Chopra and Dryden-Peterson documented, ‘Amal found a generous Lebanese school Director who made an exception by swiftly enrolling her in his public senior secondary school without waiting for her equivalency certificates’.[footnoteRef:90] [89: Elizabeth Buckner, Dominique Spencer, and Jihae Cha, ‘Between Policy and Practice: The Education of Syrian Refugees in Lebanon’ (2017) 31 JRS 444.] [90: Vidur Chopra and Sarah Dryden-Peterson, ‘Borders and Belonging: Syrian Youth’s Experiences of Displacement in Lebanon’ (2020) Globalisation, Socieites and Education. ] Access to higher education was even more elusive for Syrians in Lebanon at this time, as it often is in refugee-hosting States.[footnoteRef:91] MEHE required Syrians to submit Lebanese Baccalaureate (Grade 12) certificates or an equivalent document from Syria, certified by MEHE.[footnoteRef:92] This certification by MEHE also depended on proof of legal residence in Lebanon, a process that had been suspended by the GoL in 2015.[footnoteRef:93] Even with proof of legal residence, establishing equivalence was not a straightforward process. When Azaa arrived in Lebanon in 2013: [91: See, for example, Sarah Dryden-Peterson, ‘The Politics of Higher Education for Refugees in a Global Movement for Primary Education’ (2011) 27 Refuge 10; Barbara Zeus, ‘Exploring Barriers to Higher Education in Protracted Refugee Situations: The Case of Burmese Refugees in Thailand’ (2011) 24 JRS 256.] [92: Hana El-Ghali, Roula Berjaoui, and Jennifer DeKnight, ‘Higher Education and Syrian Refugee Students: The Case of Lebanon’ (UNESCO 2017) accessed in 21 April 2020.] [93: UNESCO, UNHCR, UNICEF, United Nations and Lebanon Go, ‘Q & A for the “Back to School” Programme 2016/2017’ (2016) accessed in 21 April 2020.] she learnt she would need to restart her university education. Embodying her name’s meaning – courage – Azaa refused to cave. She petitioned her case directly with the Ministry of Education. She describes walking into a bureaucrat’s office, setting her bag on his table and waiting quietly in front of him for 50 minutes. When he finally took notice, she proclaimed, ‘I’m in the third year and you will put me in the third year and if you don’t want to put me in the third year, I will stay in your office forever…I want to continue my education and whether you like it or not, I’m going to do it.’ The bureaucrat eventually agreed, only after letting her know that she had a ‘mind of a rock.’ Azaa finally enrolled in her third and final year at university, continuing from where she had left off in Syria.[footnoteRef:94] [94: Chopra and Dryden-Peterson (n 97).] Across diverse regions, States, and time periods, these examples illustrate that individual and local action rooted in a deep sense of normative obligation to children and appreciation of education as a universal human right often determines whether the right to education is realized, even in situations where that right has no legal basis. Studying local implementation is accordingly crucial to understanding law-in-practice. The local warrants further scholarly attention in particular in order to understand the role of host communities and refugees themselves in realizing rights. Moreover, widening the range of local cases studied would allow for rigorous comparative study to understand the determinants of the effectiveness of rights, a matter in need of greater scholarly attention. (d) Monitoring and Enforcement The preceding sections have outlined the commitment to the right to education in binding international law and states’ programmatic commitments, as well as its implementation at national and local level. This section examines the monitoring and enforcement of the right at the international level. While the CRC, ICESCR, and the Refugee Convention are legally binding on States Parties, the justiciability and enforceabilty of the right to education varies. As the Special Rapporteur noted in his 2010 report, ‘[t]he mechanisms for the enforcement of the right to education are still at an embryonic and fragile stage of development’.[footnoteRef:95] As Willems and Vernimmen describe it, ‘[t]he right to (access to) education is applicable to refugee children. However, due to the careful phrasing of international treaties of how this right is to be achieved, the question of how those rights can effectively be invoked against States remains delicate’.[footnoteRef:96] Horsch Carsley and Russell’s analysis of the right to education showing that the Refuge Convention, the CRC, and the ICESCR are among the least enforceable treaties in international law.[footnoteRef:97] [95: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education (n 41) para 77.] [96: Willems and Vernimmen (n 14) 230.] [97: Sarah Horsch Carsley and S. Garnett Russell, ‘Exploring the Enforceability of Refugees’ Right to Education: A Comparative Analysis of Human Rights Treaties’ (2020) Journal on Education in Emergencies 5 (2): 10-39. https://doi.org/10.33682/xwx5-eau3. ] At the global level, there are two important monitoring mechanisms attached to ICESCR and the CRC respectively, while the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education also has an important, if less formal, role. The CESCR, created in 1985 monitors the ICESCR. Its specification of the ‘essential features’ of the right to education in General Comment No 13 sets important benchmarks for monitoring, stipulating that education must be available in sufficient quantity for all; be accessible to everyone, without discrimination; be acceptable, meaning relevant, of good quality, and culturally appropriate; and education adaptable to meet the changing needs of society.[footnoteRef:98] This General Comment also explicitly affirms the right to education that meets these four criteria for refugees, noting that ‘the principle of nondiscrimination extends to all persons of school age residing in the territory of a State party, including nonnationals, and irrespective of their legal status’.[footnoteRef:99] In addition, while still recognizing obligations of progressive realization, clearly states that ‘the obligation to provide primary education for all is an immediate duty of all States parties’.[footnoteRef:100] In 2013, the Optional Protocol to the ICESCR created the possibility for individuals also to submit complaints against signatory States.[footnoteRef:101] Moeckli argues that this new enforcement mechanism increased the juridical powers of the ICESCR.[footnoteRef:102] To date, no complaints pertaining to the right to education have been ruled on. [98: CESCR, ‘General Comment No 13’ (n 29) para 6.] [99: Ibid para 34.] [100: Ibid para 51 (emphasis added).] [101: Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (adopted 10 December 2008, entered into force 5 May 2013) UN doc A/63/435.] [102: Daniel Moeckli, ‘Interpretation of the ICESCR: Between Morality and State Consent’ in Daniel Moeckli, Helen Keller, and Corina Heri (eds), The Human Rights Covenant at 50: Their Past, Present, and Future (OUP 2018). ] The CRC also includes monitoring and complaints mechanisms, with States Parties obliged to submit period reports.[footnoteRef:103] Individual complaints may be brought to the Committee against States that have ratified the Optional Protocol.[footnoteRef:104] One case on the right to education has been adjudicated by this body, related to the eviction of a Roma family in France and its consequences for education. However, the case was declared inadmissible.[footnoteRef:105] Pending cases as of June 2019 are all in Europe, with the exception of three in Georgia, three in Argentina, one each in Panama, Paraguay, and Chile, and a joint complaint filed by 16 children in five States related to climate change; only one is connected to the right to education, for an unaccompanied migrant child in possession of documentation who had not been assigned a tutor.[footnoteRef:106] [103: provides a report on its compliance with the Convention. The Committee on the Rights of the Child, composed of 18 independent experts, then evaluates these reports, along with any statements submitted by outside organizations such as NGOs or individuals, and reports back both to the State Party and to the UNGA on appropriate action.] [104: Optional Protocol to Convention on the Rights of the Child on a Communications Procedure (adopted 19 December 2011, entered into force 14 April 2014) UN doc A/RES/66/138.] [105: Committee on the Rights of the Child, ‘Decision Adopted by the Committee under the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a Communications Procedure, Concerning Communication No. 10/2017’, UN doc CRC/C/77/D/10/2017 (26 March 2018).] [106: Committee on the Rights of the Child, ‘Table of Pending Cases before the Committee on the Rights of the Child’ (3 June 2020).] The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education is appointed by the HRC to examine and report back on the status of realization of the right to education in various country contexts or as connected to a particular theme, as in education of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers in 2010, as described above.[footnoteRef:107] The Special Rapporteur can also receive and investigate individual complaints. There are no specific sets of recourse to these reports or investigations, instead findings can be used by the HRC and the UNGA in promoting dialogue on actions States could take to ensure the right to education or exposing States to political pressure.[footnoteRef:108] [107: Cross refer] [108: UNESCO, ‘Right to Education Handbook’ (n 25).] Local communities and State institutions, such as schools, often act on normative commitments, absent legal and institutional frameworks, to ensure that refugees can enrol in schools and realize their right to education. New orientations to ensuring realization of refugees’ rights, as codified in the Global Compact on Refugees, describe the shift of inclusion of refugees in national education systems, for example, as a formalization of this ‘responsibility-sharing’, when accompanied by mechanisms to financially support the primarily low-income countries that host and seek to educate these refugees.[footnoteRef:109] Such ideas of ‘responsibility-sharing’ are bolstered by ICESCR article 2(1) stating that States Parties should undertake steps ‘individually and through international assistance’ to achieve ‘progressively the full realization of the rights recognized in the present Covenant’.[footnoteRef:110] Yet early evidence, as pertaining to implementation of the right to education, shows instead outsourcing of responsibility by western States, shifting the ‘big responsibility’ of social services like education to refugee-hosting nation-States.[footnoteRef:111] [109: Global Compact on Refugees, paras 68–69. ] [110: ICESCR, art 2(1).] [111: See also, E Tendayi Achiume, ‘The Postcolonial Case for Rethinking Borders’ (2019) 71 Stanford Law Review 1509; Ch* B.S. Chimini; Dryden-Peterson, Adelman, Bellino, Chopra (n 4).] 4. FUTURE DIRECTIONS Our analysis has purposefully taken a multi-scalar approach to the right to education for refugees, moving across global, regional and national frameworks. In many cases, the challenges to refugees’ realizing their right to education are not legal, but instead derive from policies and practices of exclusion in resource-constrained environments. These policy and practice gaps are further exacerbated by the number of actors ranging from governments, international agencies, NGOs, and the private sector, who are working on refugee education, and resulting uncertainty about and conflict over the responsibility each holds in the provision of services.[footnoteRef:112] [112: See, for example, Adelman and Dryden-Peterson (n 83); Buckner, Spencer, and Cha (n 96); Francine Menashy, International Aid to Education Power Dynamics in an Era of Partnership (Teachers College Press 2019).] Understanding of the right to education in legal scholarship has been broadly defined in terms of access to school enrolment. Access education for refugees is limited, as seen in refugees’ school enrolment rates which are low and, in most cases, lower than nationals. More research is needed to better understand the extent of the limited realization of the right to education as measured by access. In particular, data about refugee enrolment can be unreliable because identifying refugees within schools can be difficult, both when data collection schemes do not include refugee status, and when refugees seek to blend in to avoid discrimination and other risks.[footnoteRef:113] Moreover, while national enrolment data provide overarching trends in enrolment, rates of access to education typically vary widely between regions of countries hosting the largest numbers of refugees, as well as among groups within those regions. For example, children in rural areas, girls, and ethnic and linguistic minorities may have lower levels of access to education.[footnoteRef:114] For these reasons we suggest that future research focus not only on between-State variation as our analysis has, but on within-State variation at the local level in the realization of the right to education for refugees, with particular attention to the most vulnerable groups within refugee populations. [113: UNHCR, ‘Turn the Tide: Refugee Education in Crisis’ (2018); UNHCR, ‘Refugee Education 2030: A Strategy for Inclusion (2019).] [114: UNESCO, ‘2019 Global Education Monitoring Report, Migration, Displacement and Education: Building Bridges Not Walls’ (2018).] Echoing the shift from a focus on access to education in the Millennium Development Goals to the quality of education in the Sustainable Development Goals, a growing body of school-based research forces consideration of whether access to education reflects the purposes of the right to education. The right to education, as an enabling right, means that it enables the realization of other rights; it is not an end in itself. The 4 As framework, outlined in the CESCR General Comment No 13, provides a starting point for thinking about how to imbed the purposes of education in considering what is needed to realize the right to education: education must be available, accessible, acceptable, and adaptable. Article 29 of the CRC also anticipates the need to address quality within the rights framework, establishing the right to a ‘specific quality of education’.[footnoteRef:115] The Committee on the Rights of the Child further defines elements of the right to a specific quality of education, including curriculum which is of ‘direct relevance to the child’s social, cultural, environmental and economic context and to his or her present and future needs and take full account of the child’s evolving capacities’.[footnoteRef:116] There are both resource and political constraints, however, to realizing the right to this type of education for refugees, particularly within refugee governance systems that favour inclusion of refugees within institutions of the nation-State.[footnoteRef:117] Inclusion of refugees in national education systems, in theory, could enable access to quality education through already trained teachers and recognized certification, for example.[footnoteRef:118] And yet the content and nature of what children learn in school, which is central to the realization of the right to a ‘specific quality of education’, is typically highly contentious within nation-States, even in settings where schools do not serve noncitizens for whom the duration of schooling in that place is uncertain. [115: Committee on the Rights of the Child, ‘General Comment No 1: Article 29(1)—The Aims of Education’, UN doc CRC/GC/2001/1 (17 April 2001); Pobjoy (n 16) 845.] [116: Committee on the Rights of the Child, General Comment No 1, para 9.] [117: See, for example, Bellino and Dryden-Peterson (n 81); Buckner, Spencer, and Cha (n 96); Dryden-Peterson, Adelman, Bellino, Chopra (n 4); Monaghan (n 58).] [118: Dryden-Peterson, Adelman, Bellino, Chopra (n 4).] As approaches to global governance of refugees continue to favour the authority and responsibility of the host State, including in the provision of education, an important area of focus for research, practice, and policy is how a national curriculum can be both directly relevant to a refugee child’s social, cultural, environmental, and economic contexts as well as to States’ interests, capacities, and resources. The benefits of adapting curricula to be responsive to needs of specific learners accrue not only to refugees but to the learning of whole school populations and to the collective development of States. 8