Education in Emergencies Response Planning for Humanitarian Teams Training Course

Course overview

Education teams working in conflict, displacement, disaster and public-health emergencies must make rapid decisions about where learning can restart, which children are excluded, how protection risks will be managed, and how scarce resources will be allocated. Poorly structured plans can duplicate assessments, overlook learners with disabilities, separate education from child protection and WASH services, or commit agencies to activities they cannot safely deliver. This course equips humanitarian professionals to turn evidence, coordination requirements and operational constraints into a credible Education in Emergencies (EiE) response plan.

Participants work through the full planning cycle: analysing education needs and barriers, interpreting Education Cluster data, setting severity-informed priorities, defining response objectives, costing activities, managing implementation risks and designing monitoring arrangements. They apply the INEE Minimum Standards, Sphere Handbook guidance and Education Cluster coordination practices to plan safe, inclusive and accountable education responses. Specific skills include building a response logic, selecting indicators, preparing a school-reopening package, mapping partners and referral pathways, and defending prioritisation decisions to donors, authorities and cluster partners.

Instructor-led briefings are combined with a multi-agency emergency scenario, data-review clinics, facilitated planning workshops and peer challenge sessions. Participants use realistic assessment findings, population figures, access constraints and budget ceilings to develop an EiE response-planning pack. The final deliverable is a practical, adaptable plan containing a situation analysis, priority matrix, results framework, activity plan, budget assumptions, risk register, monitoring plan and coordination actions that can be adapted for their own country programme or emergency operation.

The course is suited to experienced humanitarian and education personnel who contribute to rapid response design, cluster coordination, programme quality or proposal development and need to make education planning decisions that are operationally feasible as well as technically sound.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Analyse education needs, access barriers and protection risks using disaggregated emergency assessment data
• Apply the INEE Minimum Standards and Sphere Handbook to define safe, inclusive response priorities
• Construct a severity and priority matrix that transparently ranks affected locations and learner groups
• Develop an education response logic with outcomes, outputs, activities, assumptions and measurable indicators
• Design school-reopening, temporary learning space and accelerated learning activity packages appropriate to context
• Prepare a costed implementation plan with staffing, procurement, partner-capacity and timeline assumptions
• Build an EiE risk register covering safeguarding, access, security, fraud, conflict sensitivity and operational disruption
• Produce a complete Education in Emergencies response-planning pack for review by coordination partners and donors

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Education Programme Managers — who must translate assessment findings into feasible, funded emergency education responses
• Education Cluster Coordinators — who need to align partners around evidence-based priorities, standards and response targets
• Humanitarian Programme Managers — who oversee multi-sector emergency portfolios and must integrate education with protection, WASH and shelter planning
• EiE Technical Advisers — who support country teams to apply INEE standards and strengthen programme design quality
• Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning Officers — who develop disaggregated indicators and evidence plans for education responses
• Proposal Development and Grants Officers — who must convert operational plans into credible donor-facing education response narratives and budgets

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical experience in humanitarian programmes, education delivery, emergency coordination or project design. They should understand basic humanitarian concepts such as needs assessments, targeting, results frameworks, safeguarding, protection mainstreaming and activity budgeting. Familiarity with Excel or Google Sheets for reviewing tables and simple calculations is expected; participants will work with planning templates rather than advanced statistical software. Prior exposure to Education Cluster coordination, INEE guidance or school-based programming is helpful but not essential. This is not a beginner course in humanitarian response, and it does not require prior experience with KoboToolbox, ActivityInfo or formal donor proposal writing.

Training methodology

The five days combine focused instructor-led teaching with a continuing emergency scenario involving displacement, damaged schools and constrained access. Participants review mock assessment datasets, map service gaps, use planning templates, and test decisions against INEE and Sphere standards. Small groups act as agency and cluster planning teams, negotiating priorities, responsibilities and budget trade-offs. Daily outputs are challenged through peer review and facilitated technical feedback. On the final day, each participant completes an application plan identifying how the response-planning pack will be adapted to a current or anticipated operational context.

Course outline

Day 1: EiE foundations, context and needs analysis

• Education in Emergencies response cycle and decision points
• INEE Minimum Standards domains and practical planning implications
• Education Cluster architecture, roles and information flows
• Rapid education needs assessment questions and data limitations
• Disaggregation by age, gender, disability, displacement status and location
• Barrier analysis for access, attendance, retention and learning continuity
• Protection, safeguarding and conflict-sensitivity considerations in education assessments

Workshop: Participants analyse a displacement-response assessment pack and produce a concise education situation analysis identifying priority learner groups, barriers and evidence gaps.

Day 2: Prioritisation and inclusive response design

• Severity analysis and education needs classification
• Geographic prioritisation matrices and transparent targeting criteria
• Response options for school reopening, temporary learning spaces and learning continuity
• Accelerated education and non-formal learning pathway design
• Disability inclusion, gender-responsive programming and language considerations
• Education-protection-WASH linkages and referral pathway mapping
• Community participation, accountability and feedback mechanisms

Workshop: Working in response teams, participants build a severity and priority matrix and select a context-appropriate package of inclusive EiE interventions.

Day 3: Results, activities and operational feasibility

• Theory of change and response logic for education outcomes
• Outcome, output and activity statement formulation
• Indicator selection, disaggregation and target-setting methods
• School-reopening readiness criteria and minimum service packages
• Teacher recruitment, training, incentives and duty-of-care planning
• Education materials, learning-space and accessibility requirements
• Implementation sequencing, responsibility assignment and critical-path scheduling

Workshop: Participants produce a results framework and 90-day activity plan for their scenario, including indicators, targets, owners and dependencies.

Day 4: Resources, risk and coordination

• Costing assumptions for learning spaces, materials, staff and partner delivery
• Budget narratives and value-for-money considerations
• Partner mapping, capacity assessment and localisation decisions
• Operational risk registers and residual-risk scoring
• Safeguarding, prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse, and child protection controls
• Access, security, procurement and supply-chain constraints
• Coordination actions with ministries, Education Clusters and inter-sector forums

Workshop: Participants prepare a costed implementation outline, partner-engagement map and risk register, then present mitigation choices to a simulated coordination review.

Day 5: Monitoring, adaptation and response-plan finalisation

• Monitoring plans, indicator reference sheets and data-collection responsibilities
• KoboToolbox workflows for education monitoring forms
• ActivityInfo reporting structures and partner data validation
• Data quality checks, feedback loops and adaptive management triggers
• Transition planning from emergency education to recovery and system support
• Donor-ready response-plan narratives and evidence-based justification
• Plan quality assurance against INEE, Sphere and coordination requirements

Workshop: Participants finalise and peer-review an EiE response-planning pack, then create a 30-day workplace application plan for adapting it to their own operation.

Tools & standards covered

INEE Minimum Standards, Sphere Handbook, KoboToolbox, ActivityInfo

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions