The drivers of teacher wellbeing and retention in contexts of protracted violence and displacement (DR Congo & Uganda)

• In Event: Teacher Wellbeing, Partnerships, and Education Systems Under Strain

Proposal

There is an urgent need to understand the locally grounded drivers of teacher wellbeing and retention in crisis-affected regions of Africa, where education systems are under extreme pressure from protracted violence, forced displacement, and systemic fragility. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda represent two critical contexts where these challenges converge. In eastern DRC, decades of violent conflict have devastated communities and undermined education provision, exposing teachers to insecurity, displacement, and precarious employment. In northern Uganda, hosting one of the world’s largest refugee populations has placed immense strain on education systems, with overcrowded classrooms, resource shortages, and systemic barriers to integrating refugee teachers. In both countries, teachers are expected to sustain learning under extraordinary conditions, often at the expense of their own wellbeing, and attrition rates remain high. Yet, despite the urgency, little empirical research has systematically investigated the specific factors that allow teachers not only to remain in the profession but also to sustain their wellbeing in such contexts.
Existing studies document a range of obstacles—low and irregular salaries, limited career prospects, poor infrastructure, and high workloads—that affect teacher motivation and drive attrition across low- and middle-income countries. In crisis contexts, these challenges are amplified by exposure to violence, political instability, and forced displacement. Teachers are expected to assume “expanded roles,” including psychosocial support for traumatised learners, mediation in divided communities, and instruction in overcrowded, multilingual classrooms. While research has begun to highlight the toll of these pressures on teachers’ morale and mental health, there remains a significant knowledge gap regarding the enablers of teacher resilience and retention. Specifically, we know little about how informal community networks, school-level leadership, and professional peer support interact to sustain teachers in such environments. Addressing this gap is vital for shaping policy and practice that move beyond short-term, donor-driven interventions to support systemic resilience.
This project responds to these gaps by focusing on three interrelated factors with the greatest potential to shape teacher wellbeing and retention in crisis-affected contexts: (1) informal teacher and community strategies that provide financial, emotional, and protective support; (2) the role of school leadership and sub-national education governance mechanisms in creating enabling environments; and (3) peer-based professional support and teacher professional development (TPD), both formal and institutionalised, that can equip teachers with the skills and networks necessary to thrive. These dimensions will be analysed comparatively across the conflict-affected provinces of North and South Kivu in the DRC and the refugee-hosting regions of West Nile and Kitgum in Uganda. The project places teachers’ voices at the centre, with particular attention to marginalised educators such as refugee teachers, women, and those from minority ethnolinguistic groups, whose experiences are often overlooked yet essential to understanding equity and inclusion in education.
Methodologically, the project combines qualitative and quantitative approaches within a participatory design. Using Positive Deviance Inquiry (PDI), the study will identify schools that demonstrate unexpectedly strong teacher retention and wellbeing despite operating under adverse conditions. Building on this, comparative case studies across 60 schools will explore how different configurations of support—at community, school, and governance levels—contribute to sustaining teachers. Data will be gathered through key informant interviews, focus group discussions, ethnographic observations, and innovative autoethnographic journaling methods, where teachers will document their daily challenges and coping strategies through voice and messenger applications. A complementary quantitative analysis will draw on national and sub-national datasets in both countries, including education management information systems and conflict event data, to measure the effects of the identified factors on retention and wellbeing. The integration of qualitative and quantitative evidence will ensure both contextual depth and broader applicability.
This work is carried out by a consortium. It brings together the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), a global leader in policy-relevant research on education in crisis contexts; the Institut Supérieur Pédagogique de Bukavu (ISP Bukavu), the leading teacher training institute in eastern DRC with extensive experience in pedagogical research; and the Luigi Giussani Foundation (LGF) in Uganda, which has pioneered teacher support programmes in refugee-hosting regions. These academic and practitioner partners are joined by key policy actors: the Permanent Secretariat for Support and Coordination of the Education Sector (SPACE) in the DRC, and Oxfam Denmark and Oxfam Uganda, both with strong regional and national advocacy networks.

Authors

• Cyril Brandt, Institute of Development Policy

• Gauthier Marchais, Institute of Development Studies