Education Programme Launch

World Vision Ireland and Plan International, along with their teams on the ground, have formed a consortium to address acute education challenges in Myanmar. 

The  joint ‘Education Cannot Wait’ programme, aims to support at-risk girls, boys, and adolescents to exercise their right to quality learning in a safe, inclusive, gender-responsive and protective environment. 

Myanmar has a young population with 27.5% aged below 15. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and an unstable political environment, many marginalized children, especially adolescent girls and children with disabilities, and other at-risk girls and boys did not return to school when they reopened. 

Currently, 76% of children in the 3-5year age-group have not received any pre-school education. At least 1.1 million 5– 17-year-olds are trapped in child labour. According to a 2018 UNICEF report, 67% of disabled children were not in school during the last census. 

The project will be implemented in 23 urban and rural townships across 15 districts of Myanmar, targeting the most marginalised girls, boys and adolescents in all their diversity, with a special focus on children with disability, children in child labour and marginalised ethnic groups. 

We will contribute towards improved enrolment and reintegration of 103,382 at risk and marginalised children, adolescents, and youth. 

Broader system strengthening and capacity-strengthening for educators will be provided, with the aim of improving quality, equitable, safe and inclusive learning environments. 

The project will employ gender-responsive-interventions, inclusive programming, mental health and psychosocial support approaches, and champion best practice in innovative approaches to achieve the objectives.

Deepening our commitment to protecting the most vulnerable children in fragile contexts, World Vision Ireland is proud to provide support to this programme, and to work with donors to mobilise the resources necessary to expand access to safe, quality and inclusive education. 

World Vision Ireland has extensive experience of engaging in similar projects. As a key partner of the Irish government in their support of projects addressing education in emergencies and fragile contexts, World Vision Ireland is running our EMPOWER Programme (2023-2027) in South Sudan, Syria, Somalia and the DRC.

This project is funded by the Education Cannot Wait (ECW) Multi-Year Resilience Programme (MYRP) for Myanmar, and is running from August 2023 – May 2026. 

Education Cannot Wait (ECW) is the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises. World Vision has been a close collaborator with ECW since its establishment in 2016 and has extensive knowledge around delivering education projects globally and in Myanmar. 

The Consortium implementing the plan is made up of World Vision Ireland, World Vision Myanmar, Plan International Myanmar and Plan International UK.