Over the course of 2022, we worked with Mott MacDonald/Cambridge Education to support UNHCR globally in understanding the current state of governments’ ability to collect and manage meaningful data on access to education and learning outcomes for refugee learners.

This rapid review of evidence on learning outcomes for refugees is the first of these pieces of research to be published. It brings together evidence from almost sixty studies, and asks the questions of what is being measured? by who? and for whom? This will serve to guide the sector on a) gathering more regular and rigourous evidence on a broad range of learning outcomes, and b) making sure that evidence is shared and used to improve the learning outcomes of refugee learners.

In this blog we outline the current situation regarding school closures and the evidence base regarding the risks this poses, specifically for girls. We use data from the Girls’ Education Challenge (GEC) pre-Covid to understand who the GEC Transition Fund window girls are and their baseline learning levels. We then apply what we know about the pandemic to this evidence base and draw out the implications for supporting girls during and after Covid-19 school closures.