Established in 1950, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is mandated to provide international protection and humanitarian assistance to refugees and other persons of concern, while seeking lasting solutions to their plight. Education is an integral part of protection for persons of concern to UNHCR, over 50% of whom are children. The Education Unit in UNHCR’s Division of Resilience and Solutions (DRS) provides operational support, policy direction, and strategic guidance to field operations. The provision and expansion of access to higher education for refugees is among UNHCR’s protection priorities. UNHCR seeks to increase access to tertiary education institutions through Connected Higher Education: accredited learning programmes that are assisted through the use of information technology, and that enable certifiable learning not bound by geographical limitations. Connected Higher Education is one of the pillars of UNHCR’s 15by30 strategy, aiming to increase the percentage of refugee youth accessing higher education from 3% to 15% by 2030.
