The IRC’s education programming for primary school-aged children has three overarching goals: (1) to ensure that children enroll in and attend school regularly; (2) to protect children from all forms of violence in school and on their way to school; and (3) to build fundamental reading, math and social-emotional skills.

Roughly 1 billion children worldwide are out of school due to school closures related to COVID-19. Children in humanitarian settings face a double crisis as the health emergency disrupts their opportunities to learn, develop and thrive. Ensuring children can continue to learn during the pandemic, no matter their access to technology, must be central to the COVID-19 response in fragile contexts.