The Converging Crisis: Climate Displacement and Its Impact on Educational Prospects
The foundational role of education in driving economic development, reducing inequality, and fostering political stability is indisputable. Yet, this very cornerstone of societal progress is under a dual assault from the effects of climate change, as previously explored in my last two articles (see here and here).
Recent crises across the globe serve as stark illustrations of how extreme weather events have directly compromised the right to education within national borders. When Cyclone Freddy struck Southern Africa in 2023, nearly 5% of students across Malawi were suddenly unable to attend school. Similarly, the catastrophic 2022 floods in Pakistan disrupted schooling for an estimated 3.5 million children, with one million at risk of dropping out permanently. The duration of these closures is frequently prolonged, not only by vulnerable infrastructure but also by the common practice of using school buildings as emergency evacuation centers, as seen in Haiti, Japan, and the Philippines. In Pakistan, six months post-flooding, 92% of affected households remained uncertain of when their local schools would reopen.
These challenges, however, represent only one facet of a more complex catastrophe. The gradual creep of desertification and the violent onset of storms are not merely altering local climates; they are unmaking human habitats, triggering mass movements of people on a scale that threatens to redefine global mobility. This article examines the third, and perhaps most disruptive, dimension of the climate-education nexus: the impact of climate displacement on the right to education.
The data reported in this article are from UNESCO’s working paper “The impact of climate displacement on the right to education,” which you can consult for further reference.
Some data about climate displacement
Climate displacement is a complex, multicausal phenomenon. It is rarely a simple flight from a flood or a drought but rather a culmination of interacting factors where environmental hazards act as a risk amplifier. Population growth, underdevelopment, and weak governance can weaken the resilience of local populations, making households more sensitive to climate stressors that affect livelihoods, particularly in agriculture-dependent communities. The manifestations of this displacement are varied, encompassing both slow-onset processes like sea level rise and rapid-onset disasters like hurricanes, each with distinct implications for education.
The scale is staggering. In 2019 alone, 23.9 million people were newly displaced by weather-related disasters across 140 countries, a figure almost three times the number displaced by conflict and violence. While estimates of future cross-border displacement range wildly, the World Bank projects that by 2050, slow-onset climate impacts could force 143 million people to move within the borders of Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. Crucially, the burden falls disproportionately on the poorest. Seven of the ten countries most affected by climate risk from 1999 to 2018 were developing, low- or lower-middle-income nations, and currently, 90% of all displaced people live in low- and middle-income countries. These are regions where education systems are already stretched and where the additional strain of climate displacement threatens to cause systemic collapse.
A Legal Vacuum
A critical challenge in addressing this crisis is the glaring gap in the international protection regime. Those displaced by climate change are often erroneously termed ‘climate refugees,’ yet they fall outside the legal definition of the 1951 Refugee Convention, which requires a well-founded fear of persecution. Consequently, cross-border climate-displaced people are often classed as irregular migrants, lacking formal legal status, while internal displacees rely on a patchwork of national laws. This irregular status can lead to exclusion from national education systems, fear of deportation, and administrative barriers such as requirements for documentation that is lost in flight.
Despite this, the inalienable universal right to education applies to all, irrespective of citizenship or migration status. The core obligations on states remain: to provide free and compulsory primary education, to make secondary and higher education accessible, and to do so on the basis of non-discrimination and equality. Emerging policy frameworks, such as the Global Compact on Refugees and the Global Compact for Migration, alongside the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, provide critical guidance. They emphasize strengthening the resilience of education systems, preparing for displacement, facilitating orderly migration, and ensuring access to education with the least possible delay. The UNESCO Qualifications Passport for refugees and vulnerable migrants is a practical tool that can help mitigate the obstacles faced by those needing recognition of their qualifications to continue their studies or enter the labor market.
The Multifaceted Barriers to Learning in Displacement
The vulnerabilities inherent in displacement are then magnified by:
Administrative and legal obstacles are primary; a lack of birth certificates or school transcripts can impede enrollment, while policies excluding non-citizens from national systems may apply.
Financial hardship, worsened by the economic impacts of displacement, often forces children into labor.
Linguistic barriers can lead to frustration and dropout, while xenophobia and violence can make schools unwelcoming environments.
The psychological trauma of displacement and the instability of new living arrangements create significant hurdles to learning, which are rarely met with adequate mental health support in educational settings.
There are two particular groups of people that are affected the most by these events:
Populations involved in a planned relocation. If such relocation is not managed with a human-rights-based approach that integrally includes education, it might lead to landlessness, joblessness, and social disarticulation, all of which jeopardize schooling.
Trapped populations, those who lack the financial, social, or physical capital to move away from environmentally dangerous areas. When the wealthy and educated migrate proactively, those left behind are often the most vulnerable, remaining in areas where education infrastructure is crumbling, teachers have fled, and survival basics like food and water take precedence over schooling.
Forging Resilient and Inclusive Pathways
Confronting this escalating crisis demands urgent, coordinated, and multifaceted action from policymakers, the international community, and civil society.
Filling knowledge and data gaps is paramount. Reliable, disaggregated data on climate-displaced populations and their educational integration is scarce. States must invest in data collection and incorporate climate displacement into Education Management Information Systems to enable planning and budgeting.
Also, an alignment in legislation must be ensured. The right to education must be protected in law for all within their territory, regardless of legal status. This includes explicitly prohibiting administrative barriers like the requirement of official documentation for enrollment.
Strategizing for resilience through crisis-sensitive educational planning is essential. This involves a ‘whole-of-government’ approach, fostering cooperation across ministries. Guided by frameworks like the Comprehensive School Safety Global Framework, governments must conduct multi-hazard risk assessments, ensure safe school locations, and develop contingency plans to maintain educational continuity during and after disasters.
Ensuring access through concrete measures is critical. This requires integrating displaced people into national education systems as swiftly as possible. Practical steps include removing financial barriers through scholarships and cash transfers, creating flexible school calendars for children of seasonal workers, and cautiously leveraging technology to fill immediate resource gaps without perpetuating inequality.
Finally, addressing this global challenge necessitates robust regional and international cooperation and increased funding. Bilateral and regional agreements can create legal migration channels, while international partners must mobilize funding from humanitarian, development, and private sectors to support both displaced people and host communities.
The convergence of climate change and human mobility represents one of the most defining challenges of the 21st century, and its impact on education is a tectonic shift with generational consequences. The right to education for climate-displaced people cannot be an afterthought; it must be systematically protected, respected, and fulfilled. This requires a fundamental reimagining of migration policies to include educational considerations and a decisive effort to build education systems that are not only inclusive and high-quality but also resilient and adaptive to mass upheaval.