Op-Ed: Education: the missing piece of the refugee crisis
Written by Jeremy Barker. Originally posted on December 22, 2015 in the Washington Examiner
It only takes a moment's glance at the headlines to realize that the Middle East is in chaos. The debates raging across the United States and Europe about what to do with refugees streaming out of the region remind us that the conflict there is a global issue.
From the nearly five-year-old conflict in Syria, or the 3 million-plus displaced people in Iraq due to the rise of the Islamic State, to another 1.6 million in Yemen, and the list could keep going on, the humanitarian toll is staggering.
Yet, too often overlooked in these conflicts is the havoc wars wreak on children and basic education. Right now more than 13 million children — 40 percent of the 34 million children — are out of school as a result of the conflicts plaguing the region.