Access to education amid internal displacements in Zimbabwe: a systematic review

Chimbunde, Pfuurai; Brown, Byron A.

doi:10.3389/feduc.2026.1700177

SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

Front. Educ., 23 January 2026

Sec. Special Educational Needs

Volume 11 - 2026 | https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2026.1700177

This article is part of the Research TopicEducation To Enhance The Inclusion Of All LearnersView all 23 articles

Access to education amid internal displacements in Zimbabwe: a systematic review

Pfuurai Chimbunde^*

Byron A. Brown^†

Research and Innovation, University of Zululand, KwaDlangezwa, South Africa

Introduction: The impact of internal displacement on school children during disasters and conflicts remains a global concern. Despite the seriousness of the challenges posed by internal displacements on education, there is a lack of recent systematic reviews on the lived experiences and realities of displaced school children in Zimbabwe.

Methods: Guided by the PRISMA protocols, this scoping review evaluated empirical research from Web of Science, Scopus, and EBSCO databases to explore the challenges faced by displaced school children and the mitigation strategies thereof. After reviewing the original 216 entries based on exclusion and inclusion criteria, 6 research studies were selected for analysis. Notwithstanding the paucity of studies on internal displacement and education, the evaluated publications offer in-depth insights into the existing problems in Zimbabwean schools. The challenges faced by internally displaced school children in Zimbabwe between 2015 and 2025 are examined in these English-language articles.

Results: The findings, mainly derived from qualitative studies and stakeholders other than school children, emphasize that internal displacements not only lead to a loss of quality education but also intensify vulnerabilities and difficulties associated with living in displacement areas. The review highlights the necessity of conducting both quantitative and qualitative studies, or a combination of both, to explore school children’s lived experiences, their realities, and their suggestions for addressing their specific concerns to ensure continuity of education during displacements.

Discussion: Beyond Zimbabwe, the study acts as a potential resource for other countries in similar contexts, recognizing that no nation is immune to internal displacements caused by conflicts, civil wars, economic instability, and climate change.

Introduction

The number of internally displaced people worldwide reached a record high of 71.1 million at the end of 2022 (Sida et al., 2024). The term “internal displacement” describes the forcible relocation of individuals within their own nation, while internally displaced people (IDPs) are persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence [Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), 2024]. Upon being forcibly removed from their homes, most displaced school children are always left vulnerable and marginalized in education. Internal displacements caused by conflicts, civil wars, climate change, economic and political instability, among others, affect the education of the displaced children (Adhola and Ajulu-Okungu, 2025). To address their concerns, the last decade has seen a surge of research publications in Southern Africa exploring civil displacement of people because of political instability, natural disasters, and unstoppable economic conditions (Chiovelli et al., 2021; Chakawa and Mangiza, 2023; Mudefi et al., 2024). Research in this area continues to mount for a reason. As Chiovelli et al. (2021, p. 1) justifies “one person becomes displaced every 3 s.” Within the same wavelength, the World Bank (2020) reports that in 2020, approximately 11 million people were forced to flee their homes. To support that, Sida et al. (2024, p. 9) report that the internal displacement:

Trends are accelerating at an alarming rate, driven not only by conflict, generalized violence, and sudden-onset disasters but also increasingly by water scarcity, drought, and food insecurity due to climate change.

As such, people may be compelled to relocate both within their own country and across borders due to various factors such as economic hardship, climate change, conflict, and persecution (Kovac et al., 2022). Across Southern Africa, climate-related hazards such as floods, cyclones, and droughts increasingly displace communities. Within this regional context, Zimbabwe offers a compelling case for understanding how educational systems respond to such disruptions. This study is confined to internal displacements.

Recent years have seen an upsurge of studies on this subject, aiming to understand the impact of internal displacements on people and to provide fundamental insights into the intervention strategies that could be implemented. These studies concurrently reported that most civil displacements were driven by diverse contexts and had a negative impact on people’s livelihoods. For example, Assaad et al. (2024, p. 7) provide an in-depth analysis of civil displacement in Sudan triggered by civil wars and economic instability and found that internally displaced people are “disadvantaged and appear to be relatively neglected by the international community than those who are externally displaced.” The findings clearly show that measures are needed to support the internally displaced people. In support, Frederico et al. (2024, p. 56) argue that “internal displacement is a complex issue with wide-ranging psychological, social, and economic implications for individuals, families, and host communities.” In their study of the indigenous community of Zamboanga in the Philippines, Frederico et al. (2024) concluded that “displacement following armed conflict impacts negatively on all aspects of the lives of those displaced and are at particularly high risk.” A recent study in Ukraine by Perelli-Harris et al. (2024) provided evidence that unfavorable circumstances, along with deficits in income, residences, and social connections, account for around half of the difference in contentment with life between internally displaced people, as well as residents. They concluded that the forced relocation has a significant negative influence on wellbeing, even when it occurs within one’s own nation. Interestingly, while most of the works cited above concentrated on generic impacts of civil displacements, one study worth mentioning with a focus on education was by Damien and Luc (2024), undertaken in Cameroon. The study examined how stakeholders altered the way education was delivered to school-age children who were internally displaced during the trying times. It found that internal displacement compromised the quality of education. Another theoretical study in Kenya by Adhola and Ajulu-Okungu (2025) reported that displacement is caused by many interrelated factors, such as ethnic tension and historical grievances over boundaries and historical injustices. These displacements affect how children learn. Adeola and Mezmur (2021, p. 116), in their study that examined the protection of internally displaced persons, argue that in the case of children, their developmental state makes them particularly vulnerable to certain risks, such as sexual exploitation, physical abuse, and enforced conscription, where, for instance, the civilian or humanitarian character of displacement camps is compromised.

By and large, the majority of the above studies concentrated on the intersection between internal displacements and people’s livelihoods and thus assisted us in understanding how civil displacements pose complex challenges to people. However, most of these studies overlooked the effects of these displacement on school children, possibly on the basis that education is rarely a core focus in emergency responses because in humanitarian response to catastrophes, education is considered the fourth pillar (Justino, 2016; Spencer and Barter, 2024), leaving us with little understanding on how school children navigate the educational needs, especially so in developing countries. Considering this backdrop, the current study synthesizes research undertaken to explore the interplay between education and civil displacements in Zimbabwe, to explore what has been done and what is yet to be done for the restoration of the children’s right to education. By exploring the strides made by Zimbabwe to reinstate the educational opportunities for school children post the displacement process after natural disasters, conflicts, and economic instability, the study serves as a potential fountain from which we can draw lessons for other developing countries that are in similar contexts, considering that these countries, especially in Africa, are reeling from conflicts, civil wars, and floods. While education is traditionally considered the fourth pillar of humanitarian response, this study argues for its elevation to a central pillar, given its fundamental role in restoring dignity, resilience, and sustainable livelihoods.

The context of the study

Zimbabwe was used as the context for this study not only to benefit the academic community in the country but also as a case study to provide rich and detailed insights applicable to other contexts. Our point of departure is that internal displacement due to climate change, conflicts, and economic and political instability is not only confined to Zimbabwe but also extends to other countries. Evidence continues to mount showing that internal displacements are omnipresent, driven by climate change, conflicts, civil wars, and economic and political instability. For example, Wharton and Oyelere (2011) assert that more than 6 months of education were lost because of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Half of Syria’s population has been relocated because of the civil war (Culbertson and Constant, 2015). As a result, the schooling of the Syrian refugee children had to be suspended (Benhura and Naidu, 2021). Further examples include the 2008 floods in Nepal, which affected schools (Dennison and Keim, 2009), and the mudslide that buried children alive on the Philippine Island of Leyte (Peek, 2008). In 2005, Hurricane Katrina killed children, forced many to relocate, closed schools, and disrupted their education (Mudavanhu et al., 2016; Picou and Marshall, 2007; Wachtendorf et al., 2008). Adeola and Mezmur (2021) claim that at the height of Nigeria’s displacement issue, Boko Haram’s conflict forced over a million children from the northern area to flee both inside Nigeria and into neighboring countries. In 2014, there were 935,000 conflict-displaced persons in the Central African Republic, and over half of them were children (Adeola and Mezmur, 2021).

According to Benhura and Naidu (2021), it is noteworthy that nations like Syria, Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are typical examples of nations whose hostilities have led to the displacement of millions of children. According to Adeola and Mezmur (2021), children are the most vulnerable and make up the highest number of the world’s internally displaced people. More recently, tropical cyclones struck Mozambique, affecting about millions of people, injuring and killing them (Mutote et al., 2024). Among the affected people were school children. UNESCO (2020) reports that the crisis in Yemen caused millions of students to miss school in 2020, highlighting the ongoing difficulties in providing education services. By the end of 2018, many schools were unusable due to the war that began in Yemen in 2015, which drove many pupils to flee their homes. These cited studies reflect that no country is immune to internal displacements. However, children from such countries frequently face challenges related to access to education. When schools admit them, they can offer refuge and hope for a better future. What is happening across the globe is also shared in Zimbabwe, which is the focus of the study.

Internal displacements in Zimbabwe date to colonial times. As argued by Musora (2024), several chiefs were displaced by colonial masters to pave the way for white settlers as well as the establishment of developmental projects such as the construction of the Kariba Dam. In support, Takaindisa (2021) reports that many people were displaced as they fled Zimbabwe due to conflicts between the colonial settlers and native Blacks. During that era, internal displacement was frequent, driven by land dispossession and conflict, and had a profound, negative impact on the education of the indigenous Black population (Chimbunde and Moreeng, 2024). The colonial government’s policies were designed to limit educational opportunities for Black Africans, compounding the effects of displacement. From the time the country attained political independence in 1980, the displacement of people went unabated for several reasons, including the construction of large dams, such as Tokwe Mukosi Dam (Chendume and Tarisayi, 2023; Matiza, 2023), the controversial land reform program from the year 2000 (Takaindisa, 2021), urban evictions (Hammar, 2017), climate change-related disasters (Tirivangasi et al., 2023), and mining-related reasons (Mandishekwa, 2024). The problem of displacement in Zimbabwe has become widespread because of, among others, political instability and unstable economic conditions that have caused many people to abandon their homes (Hammar, 2017; Mandishekwa, 2024; Tirivangasi et al., 2023). Besides human-induced displacements, there were natural disasters, for example, in March 2019, Cyclone Idai displaced approximately 270,000 people in Zimbabwe and over 2.9 million across Southern Africa, destroying schools, homes, and livelihoods (UN OCHA, 2019). This event exemplifies how climate-induced disasters are driving new forms of internal displacement in the region. We use Zimbabwe as an illustrative example of broader challenges in the Global South, where climate-induced displacement intersects with fragile education systems. These displacements have resulted in significant educational challenges, with far-reaching consequences for school children. Taken together, these internal displacements invited disparagements from the populace and attracted the interests of researchers.

In response to those civil displacements, several studies in the country were undertaken. For example, Chendume and Tarisayi (2023) investigated the effects of displacements on human rights brought about by development projects in Zimbabwe, including the building of the Gwayi-Shangani Dam, Osborne Dam, and Lake Kariba. Their investigation shows that the people’s way of life was upended because they received no recompense and had no chance of profiting from the dams. Similar findings were testified by Takaindisa (2021), who reported that internal displacement in Zimbabwe is fraught with political contestations when it comes to labeling and fully recognizing their existence. Similarly, in their study of the sociopolitical dynamics that characterized the 2014 Tokwe-Mukosi forced displacement, Mudefi et al. (2024) discovered that the protagonists’ power struggles, their effects on the relocation process, and the state’s dominance ultimately made the victims’ suffering worse. In another study, Mandishekwa (2024) focused on the difficulties faced by those who were displaced from Chiadzwa to Arda Transau to comprehend these difficulties and the ways in which displaced individuals have attempted to overcome them. The results of the study show that among the main issues facing the host region are living conditions, food insecurity, and water scarcity. Another study worth mentioning was undertaken by Musora (2024), who argues that the government and commercial corporations have relocated or threatened to evict several communities in Zimbabwe with little to no consultation. These include, among other places, displacement in the Marange diamond fields, the Dinde community in Hwange, the Chilonga community in Chiredzi, and the Kaseke village in Uzumba, where there were concerns of displacement. The socioeconomic wellbeing of these communities has been significantly impacted. The study noted that development-induced displacement has left the communities struggling with issues including food insecurity, unemployment, and landlessness, among others.

The majority of the studies from Zimbabwe and other countries have concentrated on the welfare of the internally displaced people, leaving a critical gap in our understanding of the intersection of internal displacement and education. There is limited attention in mainstream literature on the interplay between education and internal displacements. Additionally, a systematic review of studies on the challenges faced by displaced persons from an educational perspective is missing. This study intends to delve into this terrain to unpack what has been unearthed so far, wherein the essence is to inform future policy direction. The current review adds to the extant knowledge on the effects of internal displacements on school children and plugs the current research gap by assessing studies that explore the nature of the challenges and the intervention strategies. Two research questions (RQ) underpin the study:

RQ 1. What challenges are faced by displaced school children in Zimbabwe?

RQ 2. How can the challenges be mitigated?

Examining the challenges faced by displaced children from an educational perspective hopes to open new avenues for crafting a multi-layered strategy that integrates policy reform, curriculum-based disaster education, institutional collaboration, safe learning environments, and accelerated learning programs to mitigate these challenges. The study, hopefully, is going to be a source of inspiration for other countries in a similar context to draw lessons from, given that Africa is conflict-ridden and disaster-prone due to political instability and climate change, respectively. The cases of political instability in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Mozambique, and the omnipresence of cyclones that continue to plague the continent from the Indian Ocean, remind us of our limitations in addressing educational challenges of civil displacement, which we need to address. The current review contributes to the understanding of educational outcomes and experiences of internally displaced children, informing policy and practice to protect the right to education during and after displacements. It hopes to strengthen the quality of educational responses in times of turbulence and shape future research directions, drawing from the gaps identified in current studies.

Methodology

To answer the questions raised above, the study was constructed on the analysis of peer-reviewed and early publications published online between 2015 and 2025, following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews (PRISMA) guidelines and checklist (Moher et al., 2009; Page et al., 2021). Figure 1 shows the whole process, that is, the PRISMA protocol. The detailed protocol included the following steps: (a) identification, (b) screening, (c) eligibility, and (d) inclusion. We first defined the eligibility criteria to include or exclude literature and then formulated search terms to find pertinent literature.

Figure 1

Flowchart illustrating the identification of studies via databases. The process includes several stages: identification, screening, eligibility, and inclusion. Initial search obtained 216 studies from Scopus, EBSCO, and Web of Science. After removing 136 records, 80 records were screened. Forty-eight were excluded, and 32 went further, with 17 not retrieved. Fifteen studies were assessed for eligibility, and nine were excluded based on criteria like not being primary research, not peer-reviewed, or irrelevant focus. Finally, six studies were included in the review.

Figure 1. PRISMA flow diagram.

Identification of source and search strategy

A literature search for peer-reviewed articles was undertaken on three electronic databases (Scopus, Web of Science, and EBSCO) to generate data using export abstracts and precise Boolean strings. A specific time frame (2015 and 2025) was specified for the search, and the subsequent search phrases were used: “internal displacement AND education AND in Zimbabwe.” We also used “challenges AND faced AND by AND school children.” Finally, we used “Education AND during AND civil AND displacements AND in AND Zimbabwe” as search strings. The first search yielded 216 entries, of which 132 were removed before screening, leaving 84 records, which were then vetted using the following criteria elaborated below.

Selection criteria

Using the PRISMA guidelines, we filtered the first 216 papers according to their title, abstract, and keywords (Page et al., 2021), which advises that studies may be included or excluded based on their contribution. To be incorporated into the analytical portion of this study, primary research that was published in peer-reviewed journals between 2015 and 2025 was necessary. The inclusion of studies on internal displacement and education from 2015 to 2025 gave a thorough picture of recent trends and strategies based on the assumption that current research provides updated evidence for effective interventions. Reports that were not primary studies were excluded because they were not able to provide us with the experiences of school children. Second, we only used studies written in English, considering that English is an international language. Since the study was confined to the Zimbabwean context, studies from other geographical settings were excluded. We also considered studies that focused on the impacts of internal displacement on education. Those studies whose foci were on displaced people and the socio-economic wellbeing were considered redundant as they could not assist us in understanding the school children’s experiences. At the initial screening, 48 records were excluded, paving the way for 32 articles to be retrieved. 17 studies could not be retrieved due to either restricted access to journals or unavailable full texts. Of the remaining 15 studies, 9 did not meet the inclusion criteria as they lacked an education focus, and others were written in English, leaving 6 for full analysis.

Eligibility

At this point, the abstracts of the articles were thoroughly read, scrutinized, and sifted to confirm the caliber and pertinence of the scholarly content to be incorporated into the review procedure. After a careful reading of the abstract and full texts, an additional eight records were eliminated because some of them did not align with the focus of the study, data, and quality assurance selection criteria, whereas others were duplicates and could not be retained for further analysis. Only six articles remained after this eligibility test, and these were used to extract data for synthesis and presentation. The number of studies available was low, indicating a need for further research to gain a comprehensive understanding of the challenges faced by school children during internal displacements; otherwise, this phenomenon remains poorly understood.

Data extraction

To build the database for the study, the entire texts of the six included research were used. Key data required to clearly identify the publications and data pertinent to addressing the two study objectives were gathered to present a methodical overview (see Table 1). The following key details were thus taken from the included studies: purpose of the research, methods used, participants of the study, challenges faced by school children, and how to respond to the challenges.

Table 1

Table 1. Studies included in the review.

Characteristics of the included studies

The analysis comprised six studies in total. All the studies under scrutiny were conducted between 2015 and 2024 (n = 6). Many of the studies in this evaluation were based on other stakeholders’ perspectives, with very few studies on school children. In addition, all studies except one in this review were qualitative in nature, overlooking the vitality of the quantitative approaches in unpacking the challenges school children faced and their proposals to mitigate them. These studies were conducted in Munzarabani, a district in Zimbabwe that is prone to floods (2), in Chivi, where Tokwe Mukosi Dam caused upstreaming flooding (2), in Chimanimani District, where Cyclone Idai flooded the area (1), and in Hopley and Caledonia near Harare (1). Some studies were excluded because they were generic, lacked a specific study location, or focused on higher education. For example, Macheka (2024) explored the degree of involvement and inclusion in disaster and climate change management of higher education institutions in Zimbabwe, whereas Bhebhe et al. (2019) examined methods that educational institutions could use to limit the consequences of natural catastrophes. That observation is surprising given that there was evidence mounting that showed Zimbabwe has internally displaced people in many nooks of the country. For instance, with little to no engagement, government agencies and private businesses have uprooted several communities in Zimbabwe. These included, among other places, the Kaseke hamlet in Uzumba, the Dinde community in Hwange, the Chipinge community in Manicaland, Rio Tinto’s Murowa Diamonds displacement in 2005, the displacement in the Marange diamond fields to Arda Transau between 2009 and 2016, and the Unki Platinum’s displacement in Shurugwi in 2002 (Macheka, 2024; Mandishekwa, 2024; Manduna, 2023; Musora, 2024). In these instances of internal displacements, studies concentrated on the intersection between internal displacements and the impact on the people’s livelihoods, neglecting to explore educational issues and opportunities.

Data analysis

Data from the six selected studies were analyzed thematically. Each paper was read several times to identify recurring patterns related to (1) educational disruption, (2) policy responses, and (3) resilience strategies. During the first stage of open coding, we carefully went over the data line by line, identifying ideas, trends, and informational units. A key component of this stage for us was comparison, which made it easier to distinguish and improve new codes. To create categories, similar codes were grouped. These categories, which emerged from the linkages and connections found between codes, show the first level of abstraction and data organization. The findings section presents the primary analytical themes that emerged from these codes.

Findings and discussion

Hereunder, we present the findings. Two themes that emerged are: challenges faced by displaced school children in Zimbabwe and the responses to challenges.

Challenges faced by displaced school children in Zimbabwe

Disruption of access to education

Studies under review revealed that school children face insurmountable challenges during and after displacements due to conflicts, climate change, and economic and political instability. The review’s findings highlight the devastating impact of displacement on access to education, including inadequate educational infrastructure, reduced enrollment, increased dropout rates, limited access to resources, and diminished educational attainment. The review revealed that a typical feature of forced migration was the loss of education, which seems to exacerbate the vulnerabilities of the displaced children as well as other difficulties that come with living in a location of displacement. Several studies affirm that position. For example, both Chimbunde (2019) and Musarandega and Masocha (2023) report that due to dam-induced displacement and cyclones, respectively, school children’s educational attainment and school enrolment declined because when schools close for extended periods of time due to broken infrastructure, teaching becomes disrupted. In a study that focused on primary and secondary learners, Chimbunde (2019, p. 98) reported that school children “suffered a gap in education, a delay in completing the study curriculum, and a lack of some critical concepts required for continuity.”

Poor quality of learning environments

The analysis revealed that informal or makeshift schools often lack basic facilities such as sanitation, libraries, and classrooms (Benhura and Naidu, 2021). Using purposive homogeneous sampling from Hopley and Caledonia settlements for internally displaced people in the country, the study revealed that displacement is invariably detrimental to the provision of quality education. The analysis confirms Christian and Stambach (2024), who argue that informal or makeshift schools often lack basic facilities like sanitation, libraries, and proper classrooms. This deficiency is linked to several negative outcomes, including overcrowding, poor teacher performance, and a detrimental impact on student motivation and achievement. The lack of essential infrastructure, such as safe water and sanitation, creates unsafe and degrading environments, infringing on school children’s rights to life, dignity, and a safe and healthy learning environment (Christian and Stambach, 2024). Regarding the quality of education, Benhura and Naidu (2021) reported that displaced children often face deplorable learning environments. They also noted the prevalence of unofficial and informal schools that exploit the lack of official educational establishments in the area. This had a knock-on effect on educational quality since those schools that served the internally displaced children were often underfunded and marginalized. The schools operated from homes and were makeshift structures.

Safety and security concerns in schools

A salient finding of this study relates to unsafe and insecure environments that compromise school children’s welfare and learning outcomes during such displacements (Chidarikire et al., 2021). In their study, which used photovoice to collect data, Chidarikire et al. (2021) evaluated the security of school children in Tokwe-Mukosi disaster-related displacement schools, foregrounded on that the welfare of children in schools has an impact on the educational agenda. The study discovered unsafe learning environments in Tokwe-Mukosi in both primary and secondary schools that were affected by the disaster. This finding shows that unsafe and insecure environments severely compromise student welfare and learning outcomes, especially during forced displacements. These conditions lead to trauma, anxiety, and difficulty concentrating, which hinders academic potential (Tabe and Emekako, 2025). The research highlights the need for improved safety and security, adequate facilities, and psychological support to create a more conducive learning environment for affected school children.

Policy and governance failures

Studies revealed that limited implementation of international frameworks and weak institutional coordination exacerbate the vulnerability of school children (Benura, 2022). That confirms Nharara and Ndlovu (2025), who contend that limited implementation of international frameworks and weak institutional coordination significantly exacerbate the vulnerability of school children. This is due to gaps between policy and practice, inadequate resources, and fragmented efforts to ensure child safety and wellbeing. According to Benura (2022), the failure to incorporate international instruments into domestic law and non-adherence to them significantly impedes the educational opportunities available to internally displaced children in Zimbabwe. All these findings point to the fact that access to quality education for internally displaced school children has become compromised and thus is a common lexicon that demands greater adherence and praxis in Zimbabwe.

Negative coping mechanisms and deepened vulnerability

It emerged from document analysis that household poverty drives children into work or early marriage, reducing educational continuity (Mudavanhu et al., 2015). Household poverty is a significant and widely recognized driver that pushes children into labor or early marriage, often resulting in reduced educational continuity. Studies show that during these disruptions, school children engaged in remarkable activities that include accepting government assistance, working to supplement parents’ income, or, at the worst, quitting school and getting married. While these activities were the last options for them, given their state of vulnerability, disaster-related difficulties had compelled them to take certain actions that made them much more vulnerable. According to Mudavanhu et al. (2015), children knew about disasters, but their ability to cope was restricted. This suggests that school children are ignorant about how to cope during internal displacement. However, Bashir et al. (2023) argue that negative coping mechanisms are maladaptive strategies that provide temporary relief from stress but ultimately exacerbate distress, leading to long-term harm and deepened vulnerability. These behaviors become problematic because they fail to address the root cause of the stressor and can create a self-perpetuating cycle of negative outcomes.

How can challenges faced by displaced school children be mitigated?

Integrated and collaborative disaster-response frameworks

Given the trenchant challenges that haunt displaced school children amid conflicts, climate change, and development-induced displacements, the studies included in the reviews recommended that there be a comprehensive, integrative framework for catastrophe resilience that involves the community, schools, and stakeholders by engaging in several initiatives (Naidu and Benhura, 2015). That framework could offset the decreased standard of education in those schools and improve educational attainment and school enrolment. The framework can also assist in deterring negative coping strategies, such as informal activities like selling goods, engaging in illicit mining, getting married young, and engaging in commercial sex (Musarandega and Masocha, 2023).

Disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate education in the curriculum

Other than disaster-response frameworks that call for holistic frameworks involving communities, schools, and government to improve resilience and learning continuity, Bhebhe et al. (2019) propose to embed disaster management into the curriculum of schools through courses in science, geography, social studies, civic education, life orientation, and skills training, which could be helpful as school children would learn how to mitigate some of the challenges and look after themselves whenever they face internal displacements.

Safe and secure learning environments

One area raised as a concern was a lack of infrastructure and psychosocial support that are essential for displaced learners’ safety and wellbeing. In response to safety issues in schools during and after the displacement, it emerged from the studies reviewed that school children and teachers were working in areas that lacked safety. To address safety concerns, the reviewed studies suggested that the government collaborate with other interested parties to create a secure educational setting (Chidarikire et al., 2021). However, how the government and other interested parties could work together to provide a secure educational setting remains limited, as only one study explored that issue. We argue that practical strategies must be actionable rather than merely suggested, with clear guidance on implementation. Research in this area remains an uncharted territory, despite the fact that it is a promising starting point. We can discern better the safety issues and then strategize policy and practice interventions if we can explore the lived experiences of the school children concerned and their teachers. To glean insights on strategies for stakeholders to build safe schools for displaced school children, more empirical studies can therefore be undertaken to siphon ideas from the learners’ and teachers’ perspectives.

Continuity of learning through remedial and accelerated programming

The studies under review demonstrated that school children experienced a lapse in their education, a postponement of finishing the coursework, and a deficiency in certain essential ideas needed for continuity. A striking finding from the reviews was a suggestion on how to ensure continuity of education after the immediate displacement. Chimbunde (2019) suggests that to restore teaching and learning processes, it is necessary to implement accelerated learning, correct performance lags, offer vacation lessons, and increase educational resources. The scarcity of studies on the effects of internal displacement and education, where these displacements took place despite several of them being recorded in other studies (Mandishekwa, 2024; Manduna, 2023; Musora, 2024), explains why education is said to be a fourth pillar of humanitarian response to catastrophes. We go further to argue that education continues to be essential for sustainable livelihoods, even though it was mainly negligible in most studies as a driver of livelihood activities. Thus, education for livelihood-linked capability is necessary, and rather than positioning it as the fourth pillar in humanitarian responsibility, it should come third after shelter and food. It should be mentioned that the government of Zimbabwe has a lengthy and problematic history of carrying out forced relocations without providing compensation, the majority of which are development-induced resettlements and displacements (Manduna, 2023). Against that backdrop, studies in this subject must be intensified in that country to find solutions that promote sustainable development powered by quality education.

Directions of future studies

Empirical studies using school children and teachers as participants might be particularly helpful in revealing the previously undisclosed challenges they encounter during and after internal displacements. While the reviewed studies have presented generic challenges that school children face in the aftermath of displacement, the literature is scarce that explores the lived experiences of these learners to discern the nature of the challenges they faced and how they wished the hurdles could be addressed. Their voices on the challenges they encountered are inaudible, yet understanding the challenges from the victims is a step toward formulating intervention strategies to abate these challenges. Most of the studies in the systematic review had not conducted empirical studies that interrogated the positions of these school children. An exception is a study by Mudavanhu et al. (2015), which examined the extent to which children in Zimbabwe are involved in catastrophe risk mitigation. This study was limited by its focus on children’s involvement in risk-reduction planning, overlooking their voices regarding their challenges and their suggestions on the best way to abate them. Taken together, most of the samples for the studies concentrated on the humanitarian organizations and other stakeholders, leaving a critical gap in our understanding of the difficulties that internally displaced school children encounter from the victims themselves in the trenches. It is thus yet to be known from the school children’s perspective whether these challenges were to do with infrastructure, change of environment, educational materials, furniture, or shortage of teachers and other enabling resources. The studies in this review are silent on school children attending secondary schools. We argue that not only are primary school children affected by these internal displacements, but also those learners at secondary and tertiary schools. As confirmed by Naidu and Benhura (2015), there was limited research on school children attending secondary school, suggesting that the issue of accessing secondary education for internally displaced students in Zimbabwe is thus a critical research area that demands more scholarly attention to offset the imposed invisibility (and neglect) by the academic community.

The majority of studies presented in this review employed the qualitative approach. Although this illustrates the general deficiency of studies that use quantitative approaches in studying the effects of internal displacement on education, it deeply obscures our understanding of the challenges that school children and teachers encountered during and after the internal displacements triggered by conflicts, climate change, and political instabilities in their countries. The disregard for educational challenges in internal relocation may be due in part to a lack of concrete proof. Without quantitative data, it is more challenging to get the attention of government actors and donors who have competing interests. Thus, there is a need for qualitative research on this subject, particularly in the areas where it might provide fresh viewpoints and new sources of information from teachers and school children. The reviewed studies employed stakeholders other than teachers and school children to explore the challenges driven by internal displacements and the ways that could be used to abate them. Notwithstanding its intrinsic drawbacks, this strategy offers a useful illustration of using a more impartial technique to record the results from the humanitarian system that were related to challenges that school children faced. However, further research must be undertaken to understand the challenges school children faced during and after the internal displacements, drawing from the perspectives of the concerned and the affected people rather than from the humanitarian perspectives. One focus of research that remains a grey area is how education can be delivered to the displaced school children who have been separated physically from their schools. Establishing a physical barrier between children and schools is one of the most obvious ways internal displacements impact education. We argue that not only is face-to-face teaching suitable for displaced school children, but online teaching options are also available for use in such circumstances, and the feasibility of this suggestion needs to be explored as well.

Conclusion

Internal displacement is increasing globally, yet education for displaced children remains overlooked in humanitarian responses. Using Zimbabwe as a case study, this review reveals that displacement disrupts access, quality, and safety in education, while institutional and policy weaknesses deepen vulnerability. The review demonstrated that conflicts, climate change, and economic and political instability drive internal displacements, which damage school infrastructures, resulting in extended school closures, which eventually cause education to stop. While the systematic literature review shows the increase in adverse effects of internal displacements caused by diverse factors around the world, there is a dearth of focus on school education systems. From the review, we conclude that school children fail to access quality education after being internally displaced. Children often fail to receive adequate attention to their educational needs because, in humanitarian response to catastrophes, education is considered the fourth pillar. While education is traditionally considered the fourth pillar of humanitarian response, this study argues for its elevation to a central pillar, given its fundamental role in restoring dignity, resilience, and sustainable livelihoods. Addressing these challenges requires a multi-layered strategy that integrates policy reform, curriculum-based disaster education, institutional collaboration, safe learning environments, and accelerated learning programs.

Most studies concentrated on how stakeholders assisted school children to navigate challenges, often overlooking the children’s own perspectives as affected participants. However, we go further to contend that in addition to being a fundamental right, education may give school children the skills they need to reverse the impacts of displacements, and as such, their voices are important. Thus, education is a factor in determining the choice of coping mechanisms. We conclude, along with Musarandega and Masocha (2023), that although emergency response rarely prioritizes education, a robust education system promotes sustainable development by guaranteeing the development of human capital. However, ensuring human capital development in this context is only possible through listening to the school children’s voices on their lived experiences of the effects of internal displacement. Thus, research is needed to quantify the impacts of displacements on education to complement what has been covered so far to get a comprehensive understanding of the subject. None of the educational effects discussed in the review had been quantified. Standardized measurements must be used across displacement settings, across nations, and throughout time to grasp the issue more thoroughly and to recognize and assess national, regional, and international patterns. The gathering of specific quantitative data on the interplay between education and internal displacement settings is necessary for that to happen.

Data availability statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, and further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Author contributions

PC: Formal analysis, Validation, Methodology, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Investigation. BB: Funding acquisition, Resources, Software, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – review & editing.

Funding

The author(s) declared that financial support was not received for this work and/or its publication.

Conflict of interest

The author(s) declared that this work was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Generative AI statement

The author(s) declared that Generative AI was not used in the creation of this manuscript.

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References

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