Interventions to improve refugee children’s access to education and quality learning: A scoping review of existing impact evaluations

Abstract

Refugee children face numerous challenges in accessing quality education. In the past years, the number of interventions aiming to address these challenges has grown substantially. What is still scarce, however, is systematic evidence on what works to improve refugee children’s enrolment and learning. The authors of this article set out to find what robust quantitative evidence exists regarding interventions that seek to improve access to education and quality learning for refugee children. They conducted a first scoping review of quantitative peer-reviewed articles which evaluate the effect of specific interventions which aimed to improve access to education and/or quality learning for refugee children. While their literature search for the time-period 1990–2021 resulted in 1,873 articles, only eight of these fit the authors’ selection criteria. This low number indicates that there is a general lack of robust evidence as to what works to improve quality learning for refugee children. What the authors’ mapping of the research evidence does suggest is that cash transfer programmes can increase school attendance and that learning outcomes, such as second-language acquisition, can be improved through physical education, early childhood development programmes, or online game-based solutions. Other interventions, such as drama workshops, appear to have had zero effect on second-language acquisition. The authors conclude their article by addressing the limitations and implications of this body of interventions for future research.