The role of international aid in education in emergencies: The hosting of Venezuelan migrants in Colombia and Peru

• In Event: Latin America’s pressing education challenges and possible futures: New privatization trends, public education for all, sociolinguistic tensions, and migration crises

Proposal

The general objective of this paper is to compare how Colombia’s and Peru’s education systems have experienced the Venezuelan immigration emergency, with special focus on education. Socioeconomic, development and education indicators, as well as cultural factors are compared in this paper to better understand the context of the Venezuelan migration crisis and the struggles faced by the education systems of its two major host countries –Colombia and Peru–, in terms of policy development and results. Differences in the flow of funds from international aid indicate that the locals and the immigrants who live in Peru are further marginalized by the international community than the locals and immigrants residing in Colombia. Even so, Peru is making a great effort to include Venezuelan children in the school system. With a framework that connects the intervention of non-state donors in Education in Emergencies with the marginalization of displaced populations, this holistic comparative study analyzed the most recent data available from the World Bank and the OECD; general and local web pages of UNICEF, Education Cannot Wait (ECW) and Save the Children (STC); as well as the available reports of the International Cooperation Agencies of Colombia and Peru. Results show that transnational humanitarian organizations tend to over emphasis on the factors that affect displaced populations in their journeys or hosting places, but the causes that originate the displacement tend to be disregarded. Furthermore, results show that funding might be necessary to obtain better education results, but it is not the only important factor that affects education outcomes and scores in international standardized tests, especially when there is an unprecedented immigration crisis. In conclusion, there is a need for different international aid models when it comes to helping displaced people and their hosting communities, particularly if the goal is to improve children’s access to education in upper middle-income countries.

Author

• Patricia Grillet, University of Hawaii / East-West Center