Recognizing and Empowering Refugee Teachers: A Sustainable Response to Teacher Shortages in Crisis-Affected Contexts

On 4 March, the Teacher Task Force and UNESCO will co-organize the webinar “Empowering refugee teachers through recognition: A sustainable response to teacher shortages in crisis-affected contexts.”  The session will bring together ministries of education, recognition authorities, teacher councils, development partners and refugee teachers themselves to discuss practical solutions to teacher shortages. The Teacher Task Force Secretariat will help lead the discussion, emphasizing the importance of inclusive teacher policies that recognize the qualifications, experience and professional rights of refugee educators.

Background and Rationale

Education plays a critical role in providing stability, protection, and a sense of belonging for learners affected by displacement, conflict, and crises. As emergencies become increasingly prolonged, frequent, and interconnected, their impact on education systems has deepened existing inequalities linked to poverty, discrimination, and political and economic instability. In such contexts, teachers are often the backbone of education responses, working under extremely challenging conditions to support both learners and communities.

Globally, the world faces a projected shortage of 44 million teachers by 2030, as highlighted in the UNESCO & Teacher Task Force Global Report on Teachers. This shortage is particularly acute in crisis-affected and refugee-hosting contexts, where limited resources, overcrowded classrooms, and insufficient financing severely constrain education quality and access. Teacher shortages disproportionately affect learners from disadvantaged backgrounds and undermine progress toward SDG 4, especially Target 4.c on increasing the supply of qualified teachers.

In many refugee-hosting regions, refugee teachers already make up a substantial share of the teaching workforce. For example, in the Eastern Horn of Africa, nearly half of primary-level teachers serving refugee learners are themselves refugees. Despite their qualifications and experience, most remain unrecognized by national authorities, often employed in informal or assistant roles, without contracts, professional status, or adequate remuneration. Legal and administrative barriers including restrictive licensing requirements, lack of documentation, and high recognition costs—continue to prevent their full integration into national education systems.

These challenges are compounded by severe funding gaps. In Uganda alone, projections for 2026 indicate a shortfall of more than 2,500 teachers, with pupil–teacher ratios in refugee-hosting schools reaching between 117:1 and 200:1. Current funding gaps represent USD 5.5 million for primary education, USD 2.86 million for secondary education, and USD 400,000 for learners with disabilities, and threaten the continuity of learning for hundreds of thousands of refugee and host-community learners.

Recognizing and integrating refugee teachers represents a cost-effective and sustainable solution to address these shortages. Enabling refugee teachers’ professional recognition and licensing is faster and more efficient than training new teachers, while also reducing long-term dependence on humanitarian funding by integrating educators into national payrolls and social protection systems.

To support this approach, UNESCO introduced the UNESCO Qualifications Passport (UQP), and upscaled the recognition level towards regulated professions, such as teaching professions. Building on this mechanism, UNESCO and the Teacher Task Force are supporting Member States to develop regional and international frameworks for cross-border recognition of qualifications, connecting humanitarian responses with long-term development planning.

This webinar will provide a platform to discuss policy solutions, share country experiences, and advocate for increased investment in refugee teachers, in line with the Santiago Consensus adopted at the World Summit on Teachers. The Consensus reaffirmed teachers as the cornerstone of education systems, called for inclusive teacher policies across the career continuum, and emphasized the need for teaching workforces that reflect the diversity of their communities, including refugees.

Objectives

This webinar aims to:

1. Highlight the scale and impact of teacher shortages in refugee and crisis-affected contexts.
2. Present the UNESCO Qualifications Passport (UQP) and related recognition mechanisms as practical tools to support teacher qualification recognition for regulated professions.
3. Position refugee teachers as a critical and cost-effective part of the solution to education workforce gaps, recognizing their qualifications, experience, and potential contribution to national systems.
4. Discuss legal, policy, and administrative barriers to the recognition and licensing of refugee teachers.
5. Present the UNESCO Qualifications Passport as a practical tool for qualification recognition.
6. Share promising practices from countries and regions integrating refugee teachers into education systems.
7. Strengthen advocacy for increased investment in refugee teachers to advance SDG 4 and the right to education.

Key Guiding Questions

• How do teacher shortages in crisis and refugee contexts affect education quality and equity? What policy and legal reforms are needed to recognize and professionalize refugee teachers?
• How can qualification recognition mechanisms, such as the UQP, support faster workforce integration?
• What role can development partners and donors play in financing sustainable teacher workforce solutions?
• How can inclusive teacher policies contribute to social cohesion and system resilience?
• How can qualification recognition of refugee teachers reduce reliance on short-term humanitarian funding and contribute to more sustainable education system responses?

Format

• Duration: 120 minutes
• Format: Virtual webinar (panel discussion with moderated Q&A)
• Language: English (with interpretation, subject to resources)
• Zoom : https://unesco-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_aEC_qZnuQoqf6Su9o9TkGQ

List of speakers

Opening: Carlos Vargas, Chief of the UNESCO Section for Teacher Development and Head of the Teacher Task force Secretariat 

SDG4 Youth & Students Network

• Alhamis Dicko, Refugee Teacher, Mauritania

UNHCR Kenya

• Vick Ikobwa, Senior Education Officer

Save the Children

• Hannah Walker, Senior Education Advisor, Global
• Geofrey Tanui, Deputy Team Lead, Kenya

Zambia Qualifications Authority

• Stella Chipeta, Chair, Technical Advisory Group of UNESCO Qualifications Passport

Jigsaw Education

• Katrina Barnes, Research Manager
• Isaac Zaji, Refugee Peer Researcher
• Margaret Atto, Refugee Peer Researcher

Closing: Lily Neyestani-Hailu, Chief of UNESCO Section of Migration, Displacement, Emergencies and Education a.i.

Registration

Participation is open to all interested stakeholders: https://unesco-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_aEC_qZnuQoqf6Su9o9TkGQ

Photo: Dietmar Temps/Shutterstock.com