Four million refugee children unschooled: UN
Geneva, Aug 29 : Barely three fifths of child refugees are receiving a primary school education and the number who do not attend school has jumped by 500,000 in the past year to reach four million, the United Nations warned on Wednesday
"Education is a way to help children heal, but it is also key to rebuilding their countries," said Filippo Grandi, the head of the UN refugee agency UNHCR. "Without education, the future of these children and their communities will be irrevocably damaged."
Only 61 per cent of refugee children attend primary school, compared to 92 per cent of children globally, according to the UN's new report 'Turn the Tide: Refugee Education in Crisis'.
And as children get older, this gap in opportunities between refugee children and their non-refugee peers widens, the report showed.
Just 23 per cent of refugee children are attending secondary school against 84 per cent worldwide. And only one per cent were enrolled in higher education, compared with 37 per cent globally.
This figure has remained unchanged for the past three years, the report said, calling the gap at tertiary level "a chasm".
Despite the efforts of governments, UNHCR and its partners, enrolment of refugee children in school was failing to keep pace with the growing refugee population, the report warns.
Children made up over half (52 per cent) of the 25.4 million refugees registered worldwide by the end of 2017, and 7.4 million among them were of school age, the report said.
"Based on current patterns, unless urgent investment is undertaken, hundreds of thousands more children will join these disturbing statistics," Grandi stated.
Attending school also played a vital role in helping refugee children find respite from the trauma of conflict and forced displacement and to re-adjust from this, Grandi underlined.
"School is the first place in months or even years where refugee children find any normality," Grandi said.
Education must be considered fundamental in responding to refugee emergencies, the report said.
It called on host countries to enrol refugee children in national education systems all the way through primary and secondary school, so they gain recognised qualifications enabling them to enrol in university or higher vocational training.
Almost all school-age refugees (92 per cent) were living in countries in developing regions, the report noted, urging greater financial support from nations as well as action to ensure all child refugees get "the quality of education they deserve".
The report called for stronger partnerships with the private sector, humanitarian and development organisations and governments to increase "sustainable solutions for refugee education".
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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