World Refugee Day 2025 — Save the Children Launches Report on Teacher Certification for Refugees in East Africa
On the occasion of the World Refugee Day (June 20), Save the Children released a new report, Unlocking Potential: Enhancing Teacher Certification Pathways for Refugees in East Africa.
Refugee teachers continue to face significant barriers to professional recognition, even when they hold equivalent qualifications to those of host country educators. Female refugee teachers, in particular, remain underrepresented, despite their vital role in supporting girls’ education.
The report highlights promising progress at both global and regional levels, including harmonisation efforts, teacher-focused commitments, and increasing access to certified qualifications for refugees. It identifies emerging good practices and outlines the systemic changes required to build teacher certification systems that are comprehensive, inclusive, and beneficial to both refugee and host communities.
To ensure these improvements translate into tangible impact, Save the Children calls on donor governments to:
- Prioritise financing to integrate refugee teachers into national education systems and payrolls.
- Include certification goals in programme planning, funding proposals, and refugee teacher training initiatives.
- Strengthen partnerships with governments, NGOs, UN agencies, and regional actors to ensure training leads to certification.
- Promote participation by refugee teachers, including women and teachers with disabilities, in decision-making on their training and career progression.
- Support fair pay by committing to funding refugee teacher salaries or exploring flexible, creative ways to free fiscal space for host countries to take on teacher management and retention.