Educational Participation and Outcomes of Refugees with Disabilities: Evidence from UNHCR Household Surveys

Ilgi Bozdag, UNHCR
Sebastian Steinmueller, UNRWA

Despite the efforts on collecting data to improve the statistical evidence on education, disability and forced displacement, the current data availability for intersectional research on these three topics is scarce. This has to do with well-known shortcomings in measuring education-related indicators for forcibly displaced populations, such as difficulties identifying them in administrative data and surveys, and a lack of disability data for refugees and other displaced persons. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has over the past three years rolled out multi-topic household surveys in a large number of countries to collect data on Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs) and other indicators for forcibly displaced populations. AGD (Age, Gender and Diversity) has been at the core of these efforts to support evidence with disaggregated data. The survey questionnaire includes both Washington Group questions to identify people with disabilities and modules on education focusing on forced displacement. This research presents cross-country survey estimates of primary and secondary school participation and completion rates for refugees disaggregated by disability. We furthermore make recommendations how to improve data availability to measure education indicators among people with disabilities living in forced displacement.

Keywords: Inequality, Disadvantage and Discrimination, Migrant Populations and Refugees, Human Capital, Education, and Work

See extended abstract.