By Amy Donnelly
Introduction
Education in Northern Ireland has seen new challenges with children and young refugees seeking a new life in Northern Ireland. A total of 48,408 people were granted refugee status in the United Kingdom by the year ending December 2025 with 8,852 of these refugees being children. But are refugee children comfortable, happy and given the same opportunity in schools in Northern Ireland as their peers? Upon arrival in Northern Ireland, the first glimpse of ‘normality’ for a refugee child may often be in a school. Yet, even there, many things will be different. Many children experience conflict or hardship in their journey to Northern Ireland, and education after such trauma is not the same as it is for other children. Research has shown that the psychological effects of conflict are not restricted to impacts on mental health but can also show up in everyday life, impacting family and peer relationships and performance in school.
Despite obligations to provide education to all children, a recent UNHCR Report showed that gross enrolment in primary level for refugees in hosting countries stands at 67%, significantly below low-income countries. There is currently no universally accepted definition of the term “refugee child” and therefore includes refugees, asylum-seekers and displaced persons of concern to UNHCR, up to the age of 18. The claims of a lack of training by teachers, a lack of resources in schools and limited access to English language classes suggests that the meaningful protection of this right in Northern Ireland for refugee children is not as straightforward as it should be. This article will argue that barriers for refugee children range from primary school children to young adults with difficulty in accessing further education beyond age 16 creating an unfair block for refugee teenagers. Further, the difficulty in identifying special educational needs (SEN) in refugee children in primary school means that they are suffering a significant disadvantage in education, largely due to a lack of home communication and language barriers. Against this backdrop, it is therefore crucial for the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive to prioritise safeguarding for refugee children to place them on equal standing to their peers with equal opportunity to thrive in Education.
But what obligations does Northern Ireland hold for the access to education explicitly for refugee children? Specific protection is provided for refugee children under Art 22 of the 1951 Refugee Convention in which states, including the UK, “shall accord refugees the same treatment as nationals with respect to elementary education.” In addition to this, the right to an education is a fundamental human right and widely recognised in international law. Most significantly, the UK has obligations, under the UN Convention on the Rights of a Child, and must “a) make primary education compulsory and available to all; and to (b) Encourage secondary education.” Moreover, in Article 2 of the European Convention of Human Rights which states “no person should be denied the right to an education.” Further the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) recognises the right to education for all, explicitly stating that “a) primary education shall be compulsory and available free to all, and b) secondary education shall be made generally available and accessible to all by every appropriate means.” A child’s education is a priority, and this does not change when a child becomes a refugee. States have a duty to provide an adequate quality of education to refugee children who enter their state.
Law and policy relating to education in Northern Ireland is the responsibility of the Northern Ireland institutions, because education is a ‘transferred matter’ under the Northern Ireland Act 1998. This means that the Northern Ireland institutions hold full legislative and executive power over decision making in matters of Education. The Northern Ireland Department of Education (DoE) and the Education Authority (EA) hold the responsibility to facilitate full development for refugee children in education and to ensure the accessibility of primary and secondary education, equal to that of national students as set out in international law. NI Direct (Northern Ireland’s official government services website) has stated that every child aged between four and 16 has a right to a school place, and that children who have arrived in Northern Ireland seeking refugee status have the same right to schooling as any other child.
Despite the commitments made, refugee children continue to face several barriers to education that are reflected in Northern Ireland. The main issues include: Reports of communication issues between students and teachers, long waiting periods for ESOL classes, lack of teaching resources and training and rejected enrolment for students who are nearing the end of mandatory education in Northern Ireland, with no required education or training after this age unlike England. These barriers will be addressed in depth in the following sections and recommendations will be made to combat these challenges for refugee children.
Barriers to education for teenage refugees
The right to education does not end with primary education as Northern Ireland is held to the obligations in international law to make secondary education accessible and “has an obligation to take concrete steps towards achieving free secondary and higher education.” However, data produced by the independent review of education in Northern Ireland shows that approximately 9.7% of young people aged 16–24 in Northern Ireland were not in education, employment or training, at various time periods between January 2020 and March 2024. These statistics are similar in the UK with an estimated 12.8% of all people aged 16 to 24 years in the UK not in education, employment or training in October to December 2025. This reflects a significant disadvantage for young refugees who may have entered Northern Ireland near the age of 16-18 as further education is not always encouraged.
Additionally, many older refugee children face hardships that their younger counterparts have not as schools reported more difficulty with young adults than primary children. A study published by Barnardo’s Northern Ireland established that teachers felt that younger children with little or no English were easier to manage as the Foundation Stage curriculum allows more interaction and all children are learning new things at the same time compared with older children who had little English. This is further reflected in attitudes towards older refugee children with many being encouraged to pursue adult routes, such as full time work rather than pursue further education in A-levels. This is a clear barrier to education as although teenage refugees may be near the end of mandatory education in Northern Ireland at 16, this should not be a decision for schools to make . The DoE must consider the effect this system has on vulnerable young refugees who may be put at a disadvantage and must uphold the statutory obligation to encourage all forms of secondary education.
Older children have reported experiences of isolation from their peers as teenage students are being placed in younger classes to facilitate learning. Although recognised by students as helpful in academic learning, this has had a severe negative impact on peer relationships and opportunities to make friends their own age. This can be detrimental towards the attitude to education as positive peer relationships are crucial. Additionally, young people expressed a need for additional language support to enable educational catch up but resources differed between localities. Even when ESOL classes are available, there have been reports of long waiting lists with some waiting more than a year. This barrier significantly restricts learning for refugee children and represents a failure in the implementation of equal access to education for all by the Northern Ireland Assembly, as stated in the international framework.
When it comes to higher education, complex enrolment procedures and a lack of documentation or recognition of previous qualifications make accessing higher education severely difficult for refugees entering adulthood. Documentation challenges to accessing higher education can be intensified due to the requirement to present a birth certificate to qualify for entrance exams as documents are often lost during the migration process or difficult to acquire. These young people are therefore often on the cusp of disengaging from education due to feeling demotivated by the narrative that they are unable to progress further. These challenges are experienced in a range of settings beyond Northern Ireland. Indeed, a report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education outlined the hardships faced by older refugee children, particularly young adults.
The lack of opportunity for further education affects refugees in career prospects as data shows that, on leaving formal schooling, newcomer pupils in Northern Ireland are much more likely to be unemployed than non-newcomer pupils with 6.6 per cent compared to 2.9 per cent. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) has conducted concluding observations on the periodic reports of the UK and Northern Ireland and has noted, with concern, the inequalities in educational attainment and outcomes for children in disadvantaged situations, including refugees and migrants. The committee recommended the State strengthen measures to address inequalities in education and improve educational outcomes for children in disadvantaged situations. In 2025, the DoE held a consultation on 16-18 legislation to provide all learners to participate in either full-time education, apprenticeship or training until age 18. This is an encouraging move by the DoE and would place Northern Ireland on the same legislative framework as England by providing protection for young people. In response to this consultation, the Equality commission for NI held that the “creation of a public duty may have positive impact on refugee children arriving in Northern Ireland after the age of 16 as this group face challenges in accessing education.”
Resources and training for educators
In addition to the failure of the Northern Ireland Department to facilitate learning for over-16s, there is also a significant lack of resources and training provided for teachers to enable them to teach refugee children effectively. Training has been provided by the Intercultural Education Service (IES) however, it has not been sufficient in allowing teachers to feel confident in their ability to provide refugee children with the education and support they need.
School is often a family’s first point of contact in their new country, and without adequate training, teachers may find themselves acting as informal advice centres, a task they are not equipped to perform. Additional training would provide confidence for teachers to help navigate these new challenges in education that significantly affect a refugee child’s ability to learn. These challenges include language barriers in the classroom and teaching trauma-affected children and young people.
In a report by UNICEF on the access to education for refugees and young people in education, the provision of training for frontline staff on working with refugee students is highlighted as critical to enabling these children to remain and thrive in education. A child coming from war-torn or unstable circumstances can struggle with resuming regular life particularly when it occurs in a completely new country which not even the child’s parents are familiar with. In this regard, it is encouraging that the Northern Ireland Department of Education has provided training for teachers to “help us better understand trauma and the long-lasting impact it can have on our young people.” However, this has not been revised since 2021. This is concerning given that teachers across the UK continue to report that in their experience, only limited knowledge was gained through formal training and interactions with colleagues and online resources acted as their main sources of information about how to teach refugee pupils. This has a detrimental effect on students’ learning and Northern Ireland institutions have an obligation under international law to provide the same standard of education to refugee children as local children.
Difficulty in identifying children with special educational needs
Almost all refugee children and young adults have additional needs in comparison to local children, such as struggles with language or trauma. However, children with special educational needs experience different struggles as they are often overlooked, and underheard. A significant issue presenting in refugee children in education is the difficulty in identifying special educational needs in children when language barriers are present. Teachers in Northern Ireland have reported difficulty in being able to discern between the language barrier and a potential learning problem or special educational need for newcomer pupils. In addition, the breadth of languages and different levels of understanding within the classroom was highlighted as a challenge for teachers in assessing individual capacity.
A UNHCR study in 2025 found that refugee classrooms face alarmingly high pupil to teacher ratios which can directly undermine learning and teachers struggle to identity additional needs or learning difficulties. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds may need smaller class sizes to thrive yet this is not the case in many schools. Studies on ethnic minority groups across the UK have found that the lack of English may be a source of frustration for parents when communicating with their children’s school as they are often unable to talk directly to teachers and at times may feel that their concerns are not listened to. Teachers may also find communication problematic in terms of explaining to parents about a child’s progress and the importance of helping children with homework. This lack of communication can be especially detrimental to refugee children who may have special educational needs as teachers and parents having limited communication may make it difficult to identity SEN.
Summary and recommendations
A child’s education is key to the successful and positive integration of refugee children into society in Northern Ireland. To set a child up for a fulfilled life, with equality of opportunity, a sense of safety and stability must be established in school. This means that achieving a longer-term, positive adaption is dependent on the extent to which these children are allowed to participate equally in their new environments. Therefore, it must be recommended that:
- The Northern Ireland Department of Education should consider amending the 16-18 legislation to raise the mandatory learning age to protect disadvantaged refugee and newcomer children who arrive near the age of 16.
- The Northern Ireland Department of Education should review waiting times for ESOL language classes, along with availability of these classes.
- The Northern Ireland Department of Education should implement additional measures and individual assessment measures to be adopted in primary schools to identify potential learning difficulties in newcomer children upon arrival to a new school.
Amy Donnelly is an LLM student at Ulster University School of Law and a member of the Migration Policy Clinic team at Ulster University Law Clinic.
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