Islamic Dawah Primary Kumrabai Junction Kholifa Mabang GPE Project. Photo: Charlotte Woellwarth/Concern Worldwide

Education

Why education? Every child has the right to safe, inclusive and quality education. As one of the strongest routes out of poverty, education helps children build knowledge, skills and confidence to shape their futures, yet poverty, crisis, conflict, climate shocks, inequality and weak education systems continue to prevent many from accessing and continuing their learning.

Concern’s education programmes are designed around the needs of each local context and focus on three connected priorities: access, quality and wellbeing.

Across humanitarian response, preparedness, recovery, and development contexts, we help the most excluded children access and continue learning, strengthen foundational literacy, numeracy and social and emotional skills, and feel safe, protected and supported.

We work with education authorities, schools, teachers, caregivers, communities and local partners to strengthen education systems, support teachers and create protective learning environments where children can learn, recover and thrive.

Latest achievements

In 2025, our education programmes had a strong focus on Education in Emergencies

In 2025, Concern’s education programmes reached 144,000 people directly and 437,000 people indirectly across 10 countries. Of those reached directly, 83% were supported through Education in Emergencies, and women and girls made up more than half of participants overall.
In Niger, Learning Together/Apprendre Ensemble supported around 71,000 children in crisis-affected areas to continue their education through safe learning spaces, interactive radio lessons, accelerated learning and community mobilisation, while strengthening local capacity to prepare for and respond to future crises.
In Syria, Concern’s non-formal education and homework support helped children affected by displacement continue learning, with 90% of children completing learning cycles progressing into further education.

Concern is working in Sierra Leone with children to access inclusive learning.

Patience Ilunga Jolie teaches women the alphabet in Manono, Tanganyika. Photo: Pamela Tulizo/Panos/Concern Worldwide

Patience Ilunga Jolie teaches women the alphabet in Manono, DRC. Photo: Pamela Tulizo/Panos/Concern Worldwide

Skills training courses facilitated by Concern Worldwide

Women learn the alphabet in Manono, DRC. Photo: Pamela Tulizo/Panos/Concern Worldwide

Girls learn how to protect people from Covid-19 in their school in Pakistan

Students in Sierra Leone learn about numerical place values.

A closer look at our education programmes

Concern’s education programmes support children and young people affected by extreme poverty, crisis and exclusion to access safe, inclusive and quality learning opportunities. Our work focuses on three connected priorities: improving access to education, strengthening the quality of teaching and learning, and supporting the wellbeing of children and teachers. In emergencies and protracted crises, we use crisis-responsive approaches to help minimise learning disruptions, support children return to school, stay safe, recover from any learning losses and build the foundational skills they need for the future.

Keeping children learning in emergencies

Nearly 234 million school-aged children in crises need urgent support to access quality education, while fewer than one in five crisis-affected children can read by the end of primary school. In emergencies and protracted crises, Concern helps children stay connected to learning through flexible approaches such as alternative education, accelerated learning, distance learning, school kits, remedial support and community mobilisation.

Flagship approaches such as Learning Together-Apprendre Ensemble in Niger and HOPE III in Chad show how education can be adapted in insecure and displacement-affected settings, helping children to return to learning, remain engaged and progress into further education.

Improving quality and learning outcomes

Safe, inclusive and supportive learning environments