UNICEF documented a deepening educational emergency for Haiti’s displaced children in 2025, with over 1,600 schools closed nationwide due to gang violence and occupation, 243,000 students out of school, and 7,500 teachers without functioning workplaces. For the more than 650,000 children among the displaced population, the educational emergency compounded the already severe developmental consequences of displacement, violence exposure, and nutritional insecurity.
The educational emergency was not uniform across Haiti. In areas where the Kenya mission had helped restore some security, schools had begun reopening cautiously — a pattern that demonstrated the direct connection between security and educational access and provided a concrete example of the humanitarian benefits of effective security operations. But these pockets of restored educational access were vastly outnumbered by the continued closures in most of the affected territory.
Teachers who had been unable to work due to school closures faced their own economic emergency, with no income to support their families while being unable to practice their profession. Many had left the education sector or the country entirely, creating a teacher shortage that would complicate the eventual resumption of education even after security conditions improved. Rebuilding the teaching workforce alongside school facilities would be necessary components of educational recovery.
Education in emergencies specialists called for mobile learning programs, radio-based instruction, and certified distance learning options that could maintain some educational continuity for children unable to attend school in person. They argued that every month of missed education had measurable long-term consequences for children’s development and future opportunities, and that the scale of educational disruption in Haiti was producing a human capital crisis that would constrain the country’s recovery for decades.