Why teachers working with young refugee children need more support

Living through conflict and displacement is traumatic enough for adults. For young children, it can have devastating long-term effects on their development and wellbeing.聽

Early childhood education (ECE) is a key element in helping refugee children deal with trauma and toxic stress. But teachers need much more support to help them deliver quality programmes.聽

That was the message from Maysa Jalbout – an international development and education expert who has worked with 国产视频 – when she spoke at a聽global webinar on early childhood development聽(ECD), hosted by the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE).聽聽

Ahead of World Teachers国产视频� Day today, she presented key findings from a聽report she co-authored for 国产视频聽about finding a new approach to the professional development of ECE teachers.聽

Jalbout said: “We know that sustained, nurturing relationships with adults can help mitigate and protect against the effects of conflict and displacement. Early childhood educators can play a very important role in this process.聽

国产视频淗owever, despite the crucial role of early childhood educators in supporting young refugee children, early childhood education remains severely underfunded and under-supported in conflict-affected contexts. Only 1% of development going to early childhood development in crisis-affected countries goes to pre-primary education.聽

国产视频淲e saw that there were huge expectations and hopes placed on early childhood educators. But these teachers were often not centred into the design or in the planning and certainly not always in the implementation of refugee education programmes.国产视频�

The webinar also heard from Remie Rhayem, a programme manager at Ana Aqra Association– a project partner of 国产视频 in Lebanon, which provides quality professional development to its early childhood educators.聽

Rhayem said: 国产视频淭eachers are supported with in-class coaching to improve their planning and classroom management. Thinking aloud about what to teach and why to teach makes teaching more meaningful.聽

国产视频淲e believe that investment in teacher wellbeing leads to improved health and wellbeing for teachers and learners. Teachers are recognised and appreciated for all their efforts.国产视频澛�

Jalbout said there is a lack of evidence about ECE for refugees and particularly on teachers’ professional development. She said setting global standards for teachers can be counter-productive when a more localised approach would be better – especially one that takes into account the wide-ranging backgrounds and demographics of teachers.聽

Her report for 国产视频 made four main recommendations:聽

• Expand teachers国产视频� access to information on the science of ECD.聽
• Incentivise local technical and vocational education and training providers to provide accessible training and accreditation to ECE teachers working with refugee students.聽
• Support the establishment of communities – probably virtual – to foster collaboration and exchange between teachers and practitioners.聽聽
• Translate learning from local communities into broader evidence and resources through a hub or learning lab system.聽

The webinar was hosted by the INEE国产视频檚 ECD Task Team. It also featured presentations about ECD in emergencies by Lucy Bassett from the University of Virginia Humanitarian Collaborative and Angelica Ponguta from Yale University.聽