By Seun Adebayo, UNHCR Pedagogical & Digital Inclusion Officer, and Cirenia Chávez Villegas, UNHCR Education Officer
Since 2024, we have been gathering evidence from around the world to improve how we teach and support forcibly displaced learners. We share these insights in UNHCR’s Refugee Education Research Digest. The latest edition (May 2025) highlights one of the most compelling takeaways: teachers often step up, especially when formal systems falter.
In Lithuania, Lunina and Jurgilė (2025) chronicle how ten preschool educators were suddenly tasked with integrating refugee children – with no guidance and resources. Facing language barriers, cultural differences, and no trauma-informed framework, the teachers turned to self-learning: sourcing materials online, adapting lessons on the fly, and inventing storytelling circles in children’s home languages. They created language-learning games, used art to promote belonging, and formed peer networks to exchange practical tips – from basic Arabic and Russian phrases to ways of comforting children coping with loss (Lunina & Jurgilė, 2025).
Their ingenuity offers powerful evidence that when teachers are empowered to adapt, classrooms become spaces of inclusion and resilience.
But improvisation alone cannot substitute for systemic support. How might teacher training be reconfigured so that adaptive expertise and psychosocial care become recognized professional standards? And what logistical models can ensure interpreters reach understaffed preschools within days rather than weeks?
Dialogic pedagogy as inclusion: insights from Turkey
Research from early-childhood settings in Türkiyefurther show the power of teacher agency. Karsli-Calamak and Mazzanti (2025) document how refugee-teaching specialists created “open spaces” for dialogic learning, where children’s voices and emotions were heard. They critically questioned dehumanizing narratives and engaged parents through home visits.
In these classrooms, lessons were not rigid scripts but evolving conversations that addressed students’ lived experiences (Karsli-Calamak & Mazzanti, 2025). Such humanizing pedagogy counters monolithic curricula and offers a blueprint for inclusion: educators trained in intercultural reflection can become brokers of belonging, bridging system demands and the realities of refugee children. Could structured teacher reflection and intercultural training foster more equitable and responsive classrooms, even in politically volatile contexts? More comparative research is needed to understand how policy constraints shape, or hinder, these dialogic practices (Dryden-Peterson, 2022; Koehler & Schneider, 2019).
Educators trained in intercultural reflection can become brokers of belonging, and bridge system demands with the realities of refugee children.
Learning and well-being: the Ugandan bridge programme
In Uganda, Reynolds et al. (2025) evaluated a bridge programme that helped refugee adolescents transition into higher education. What set the programme apart? Psychosocial support—counseling, peer workshops, and life-skills sessions—was treated as essential and woven into daily teaching. Students grappling with trauma demonstrated clear gains in math and language when their emotional needs were treated as integral to academic success (Reynolds et al., 2025). This reinforces global mental health guidance showing that safe, supportive school environments bolster refugee resilience (Block et al., 2014; Mohamed & Thomas, 2017). Uganda’s experience offers a practical model: integrate mental-health professionals and low-bandwidth communication tools into refugee learning initiatives. Yet important questions remain: what models of local versus NGO-led psychosocial care yield the most sustainable outcomes?
Students coping with trauma demonstrated clear gains in math and language when their emotional needs were treated as integral to academic success
Education as sanctuary: holistic pathways in Indonesia
In transit countries, learning centres can be vital sanctuaries. Karlin and Kang (2025) highlight one such center in Indonesia that combines accredited English-medium courses, apprenticeships, and inclusive support networks. By nurturing cultural, social, and economic capital, the centre not built students’ skills but also restored hope. Children who might otherwise have dropped out were motivated by real-world credentials and mentorship roles (Karlin & Kang, 2025). This holistic approach is a reminder that refugee education must extend beyond literacy. It must cultivate agency, identity, and opportunity. Critical questions remain: How can transit nations scale accredited pathways and apprenticeship programmes? What are the long-term benefits to learners who experience integrated academic, vocational, and psychosocial support?
Refugee education must extend beyond literacy. It must cultivate agency, identity, and opportunity.
Bridging cultures through language and inclusion
From Finland to Australia, a growing body of research affirms the value of inclusive pedagogy and coherent language practices. Kaukko et al. (2025) show that translanguaging – drawing on students’ full linguistic abilities – and tapping into students’ “funds of knowledge” affirm refugee identities and keep students engaged. But it takes more than time in a host country to build language skills. Hammoud et al. (2025), surveyed 945 Syrian adolescents in Lebanon, Türkiye, and Australia, found that extended residence alone does not improve comprehension unless paired with targeted in-language instruction. Segregated language classes may yield short-term gains, but can isolate learners. Moreover, residency and education policies profoundly shape what language services schools may legally offer.
The priority, then, is to balance targeted support with meaningful integration, ensuring that curricula and assessments are flexible enough to leverage students’ linguistic resources. Could co-teaching models, bilingual programmes, or cultural liaisons in mainstream classrooms become standard practice? Future comparative studies should track refugee learners over time, examining how different language-support models influence both academic outcomes and social networks.
Toward equitable and sustainable systems for refugee education
The latest evidence offers an optimistic yet demanding picture: refugee learners thrive when systems prioritize teacher agency, psychosocial care, and inclusive language policies. To build on this momentum, we offer some key recommendations that can help strengthen education systems for both refugees and host communities:
- Empower teachers by embedding training and support for refugee education in national education systems.
- Integrate psychosocial care into schools through sustained investment in mental health professionals and support services.
- Adopt inclusive language policies that reflect the linguistic diversity of refugee learners, enabling better access to quality learning.
- Commit to long-term systemic reforms rather than ad hoc or temporary responses to refugee education needs.
- Co-create flexible curricula with refugee communities to ensure relevance and responsiveness.
- Streamline enrollment and assessment policies to ensure timely placement and access, including multilingual assessments to remove language-related barriers.
- Invest in rigorous research—comparative, longitudinal, and context-specific—to understand what works and scale interventions with proven long-term impact.
- Promote solidarity and evidence-based action as guiding principles for policy and practice in refugee education.
Refugee learners thrive when systems prioritize teacher agency, psychosocial care, and inclusive language policies.
