‘The students do not know why they are here’: education decision-making for Syrian refugees

This case study, conducted collaboratively between education scholars and education practitioners, describes and analyses the ways in which Syrian refugee teachers and an NGO are developing and implementing non-formal education (NFE) programming in three refugee settlements in Lebanon. Utilising the INEE Minimum Standards for Education in Emergencies, we analyse teachers’ and programme administrators’ decision-making processes regarding curriculum, language of instruction, and pedagogy as well as how and why these decisions are made in the absence of a guiding framework or policy for NFE. We also consider the ways in which the nation-state writ large still helps to influence these decisions in the ‘global era’.