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Education in emergencies has only been formally recognised in humanitarian architecture in the past 20 years. Today, however, that recognition is already under threat.
Amid mounting financial pressures, the ongoing budget prioritisation process and humanitarian reset have introduced a tiered framework that relegates education to a secondary, “time-sensitive” category. It’s distinct from the top-tier designation reserved for narrowly defined life-saving activities that avert immediate death.
This marks a troubling shift. It forces humanitarians to walk a difficult tightrope – balancing best practice, contextual expertise, and the explicit requests of affected communities, against a list of sectoral interventions based on a narrowing set of criteria. These criteria are not defined by those living through conflict and crisis, but those outside of it.
The consequences are far-reaching. When education is deprioritised, programmes and schools are shut, safe spaces are closed, and essential support for children in crisis is sidelined. Educational spaces are often the one consistent place where children and communities meet in daily life – a foundation for connection, stability, and access to essential, life-saving resources. What is lost is not only access to learning, but the scaffolding that helps children survive, process trauma, maintain routine, and imagine a future beyond the immediate.
Is the goal to merely keep people alive, or to enable them to live meaningful, dignified lives?
Education was disproportionately deprioritised in 2025 humanitarian response plans, after this guidance on prioritisation tiers was issued last year by the UN’s humanitarian aid coordination arm, OCHA.
Education saw a 37% reduction in funding requirements, compared to a 30.5% decrease for the so-called “big five” sectors – food security, health, nutrition, shelter and non-food items, and WASH (or water, sanitation, and hygiene). In countries facing the largest education crises – such as Sudan and Chad – education funding requirements were slashed by as much as 90%.
As 2026 nears, we see a risk that education in emergencies will be removed entirely or in large part in response plans. It’s time to amplify what affected communities, particularly children, have long understood and have tried to tell us: Education is not a luxury. Even within the narrow parameters now used to define top-tier humanitarian priorities, education is life-saving.
Education saves lives by:
- Shielding children from harm – removing them from violence, exploitation, and life-threatening environments.
- Helping children to access clean water and health and nutrition services.
- Supporting emotional well-being, and preventing trauma and neglect when mental health services are embedded.
- Equipping children with life-saving knowledge and skills – from evacuation drills and first aid to hygiene and hazard awareness.
We know that the financial crisis is forcing the humanitarian sector to make difficult decisions. But we must also challenge the narrow lens “prioritisation” imposes.
A singular focus on immediate mortality will sideline interventions that enable sustained recovery, peace, and human dignity. It overlooks how education shapes children and societies beyond an emergency’s early shocks.
Children don’t just survive crises; they can grow into thoughtful, feeling leaders who rebuild their communities and mould the future.
The question for policymakers is clear: Is the goal to merely keep people alive, or to enable them to live meaningful, dignified lives?
Rethinking Humanitarianism | Why emergency education saves lives
On the podcast: Why disrupted schooling is the norm as climate change worsens, and the argument for prioritising education in an era of aid cuts.
Being accountable means prioritising education
The promise to listen to communities and to include them in decision-making has become a humanitarian imperative. Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) affirms that crisis-affected people must have voice, power, and agency in the decisions that shape their lives.
If we truly listened to what children and their caregivers consistently tell us, then education would be front and centre in any humanitarian response.
Children make up approximately 58% of people in need, globally. In war, displacement, and climate disasters, children are remarkably consistent and clear in what they ask for. Even when food is scarce, water is dirty, and medical care is non-existent, children tell us they want one thing above all: the chance to go to school. They want their fundamental right to education realised.
True humanitarian accountability demands that we centre the voices and priorities of affected populations, not just operational constraints, leadership assumptions, or donor agendas. Yet time and again, children – the very individuals most affected by crises – are excluded from Humanitarian Country Teams, prioritisation processes, and needs assessments. Those not impacted by crisis continue to decide what is worth saving.
But genuine inclusion is possible. In countries with active humanitarian responses where the Global Education Cluster is active, 17 country teams have consulted children during needs assessments, strategy development, or monitoring. And 95% of joint education needs assessments have included child participation. The cluster has open-access tools and training to support the safe and ethical inclusion of children’s voices.
The reset we need
How do we advocate for affected populations’ needs and rights amid shrinking budgets and growing needs? How do we avoid pitting humanitarian sectors against one another – reducing rights to a cost-benefit equation of who gets what, and when?
We know there is no single solution, but we offer one practical action: Centre humanitarian response for children around educational spaces.
Schools function as trusted hubs of daily life. In humanitarian emergencies, education spaces are often the only service where children and families have consistent, repeated contact with humanitarian personnel. While other services – such as food distribution, healthcare, or protection – are often intermittent or narrowly targeted, education provides daily, structured, and sustained engagement.
We know there is no single solution, but we offer one practical action: Centre humanitarian response for children around educational spaces.
Education spaces must be recognised and resourced as core humanitarian infrastructure. They are not just formal schools, but also informal and community spaces, into which communities already invest time, effort, and their own resources to continue or establish learning opportunities. A truly localised response builds on this prioritisation, with humanitarian actors supporting and amplifying. Due to this community prioritisation and investment, educational spaces are trusted, visible, and reliable access points, offering children stability and caregivers safety, information, and hope. They are uniquely positioned to deliver integrated rights- and needs-based programming. Around the world, schools have hosted vaccination campaigns, screened for malnutrition, provided menstrual hygiene education, and shared vital information on food distribution and landmine awareness. Delivering health, protection, WASH, and referral services through education means that rights – rights to education, protection, health, sanitation, participation, and development – are upheld via a single, trusted platform. This is efficiency.
Humanitarian action must be guided by affected populations, with responses that address immediate needs without undermining long-term resilience.
The average length of time people spend displaced now lasts 20 years, and conflicts are stretching for decades. Short-term interventions confine generations to stagnation, unrealised potential, and a cycle of crises.
The humanitarian reset we need is not one that narrows our ambitions to keeping children alive. It is one that reaffirms our commitment to helping them live.
We must reject the false dichotomy of saving lives versus improving lives. And we must keep listening to the children and families who tell us – over and over again – that education is their hope, their anchor, and their path to resilience and recovery.
