Browsing by Author "Response for Venezualans (R4V)"

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    Education Caribbean RMRP: Education Sector Background Notes
    (2020-07) Response for Venezualans (R4V)
    In recent years, increased numbers of Venezuelans have continued to flee to the Caribbean due to serious threats to their lives, freedom, safety and limited access to their basic human rights, including health care, medicines, education and food. By the first quarter of 2020, an estimated 113,500 Venezuelans sought refuge in the Caribbean, including 17,000 in Aruba, 16,500 in Curaçao, 34,000 in Dominican Republic, 22,000 in Guyana, and 24,000 in Trinidad and Tobago. A significant segment of the Venezuelan population in the above-mentioned host countries are school-aged children. For instance, in Trinidad and Tobago, as of 31 May 2020, there were 1,966 children aged 5 to 17 out of 15,965 Venezuelans registered with UNHCR, which represented 12% of the registered population. In Guyana, among 2,090 Venezuelan refugees and migrants biometrically registered in late 2019 and early 2020, there are 652 children between the age of 5 and 17, that being 31% of the total.1 Once settled, Venezuelan migrant and refugee children and youth encounter challenges in accessing education throughout the Caribbean sub-region, particularly in non-Spanish speaking countries such as Aruba, Curaçao, Guyana and Trinidad & Tobago. Although Caribbean countries are bound by international legal obligations to provide education to all children, in practice accessing formalized and accredited education remains a challenge.2 Even in countries where official access is granted for public primary and secondary schooling, Venezuelan children and youth face administrative, financial, language and cultural barriers to quality education and limitations on accessing tertiary education not to mention the occasional xenophobia which has translated into cases of bullying at school.