‘Breaking Barriers: Understanding Educational Exclusion in Crises‘ presents Education Cannot Wait’s (ECW) 2026 global estimates on how conflict, displacement, climate shocks, and socioeconomic crises are disrupting education for children and adolescents worldwide. Drawing on the largest cross‑country dataset assembled to date on education in emergencies, the report identifies where needs are greatest, who is being left behind, and the barriers that prevent crisis‑affected children from accessing, progressing in, and learning through education.
The report finds that an estimated 258 million school‑age children in 87 countries have had their education affected by crises, with 93 million – just over one in three – completely out of school and many more learning in overcrowded, disrupted classrooms. It shows that needs are highly concentrated. Nearly 80% of out‑of‑school crisis‑affected children live in just 20 countries facing extreme or high‑severity crises, most of them in Sub‑Saharan Africa and protracted conflict settings such as Afghanistan, Sudan, Yemen, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Education exclusion is deeply unequal, with displaced children, children with disabilities, and girls facing the highest barriers to attending and completing school.
Beyond access, ‘Breaking Barriers’ highlights a severe learning crisis, especially in conflict‑affected contexts where children progress more slowly and rarely reach minimum proficiency in reading and mathematics by the end of primary school. New evidence shows how weak foundational learning and interrupted schooling accumulate into much higher out‑of‑school rates at secondary level, particularly for forcibly displaced learners.
The report closes with four evidence‑grounded priorities for programming, policy, and financing: prioritising foundational learning from the outset of emergency response, reducing financial and structural barriers to education, investing in structured catch‑up and remedial learning at scale, and supporting successful transition to secondary education for crisis‑affected children and youth.