Rapid Education in Emergencies Toolkit

An estimated 234 million crisis-affected children and adolescents need education support, more than two thirds of whom live in the ten countries most affected by conflict. More than 72 million are children out of school. 

At the same time, we know that humanitarian crises, whether driven by conflict or natural hazards, can be anticipated and addressed proactively. In fact, at least half of all crises are at least partially predictable. With global funding for EiE shrinking, acting in advance becomes essential, as highlighted in the Humanitarian Reset. Acting in advance allows us to stretch limited resources further and deliver more effective support early in a crisis to save lives, protect learning infrastructure, and reduce the long-term cost and severity of impacts on education systems. 

By embedding rapid response into the core work of the education clusters, coordination teams and partners can uphold learning continuity and children’s rights while remaining aligned with the values the Humanitarian Reset seeks to re-center in humanitarian work, especially through area-based coordination and other multi-sectoral, operational coordination mechanisms.

This toolkit is the first of its kind dedicated to rapid education response. It aims to improve children’s and adolescents’ access to safe, quality education in the first phase of humanitarian emergencies by strengthening rapid response capacities—whether through integration into multi-sectoral Rapid Response Mechanisms (RRMs), complementary education-specific mechanisms, or a combination of both approaches. It also highlights the link between preparedness, anticipatory action, and rapid response as part of the same continuum. 

This toolkit serves as a practical resource and advocacy tool to support education coordination teams and their partners in preparing for and delivering rapid education responses. Specifically, it guides users through the preparedness-anticipatory action-response continuum, with tools for contingency planning, rapid needs assessments, response planning, advocacy, resource mobilization, and monitoring and after-action review. The tools are indicative and should be contextualized for each response.

Using evidence to justify education being included in the first phase of the response is critical.

Key Takeaways

Evidence demonstrates that when education is prioritized in rapid response, children are safer, families access multiple essential services, and humanitarian action is stronger. The Rapid Education Response Toolkit is designed to help you put this case into action. It brings together the evidence and advocacy messages that education teams need to engage with humanitarian leadership, mobilize resources, and coordinate effectively in the first 90 days of a crisis. In the current era of the Humanitarian Reset, this toolkit is not only relevant—it is indispensable for ensuring that the lifesaving role of education is realized in the first phase of humanitarian action.

The evolving aid landscape, marked by rising needs and shrinking resources, has left education facing some of the steepest cuts among sectors as part of the Humanitarian Reset. In this context, it is more urgent than ever to ensure that the lifesaving role of education in the first phase of response is recognized, prioritized, funded, and implemented.

Against this backdrop, the Rapid Education Response Toolkit provides you with the evidence, arguments, and practical tools needed to secure education’s place in rapid response - whether it’s a Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) or a complementary rapid education response - and to demonstrate that education is not an optional service to be restored later, but a frontline lifesaving response from day one.

Recognized in the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) Lifesaving Criteria since 2010 and embedded in most Humanitarian Response Plans, EiE has repeatedly proven to provide protection and stability when children are at their most vulnerable:

• Education is protective: Learning spaces shield children from recruitment, abuse, and exploitation, while restoring a sense of hope and dignity.
• Education is a multiplier: Schools act as critical delivery platforms for other sectors. They are where children can access food through school feeding programmes, vaccinations and health checks, safe water and sanitation facilities, protection monitoring, and psychosocial support. By anchoring these services in existing, trusted spaces, education multiplies the reach and impact of humanitarian action far beyond the classroom.
• Education is demanded: Caretakers, teachers, and girls and boys facing humanitarian crises frequently cite education as one of their most important priorities.
   

Putting in place key preparedness actions is key to ensure impactful and effective rapid responses to sudden onset crises and shocks.

Key Takeaways

Preparedness is critical before emergencies—whether caused by conflict or climate-related hazards. By acting in advance, education practitioners can ensure that plans and coordination systems are in place, enabling rapid and effective responses when crises occur. Contingency planning is a vital process for the sector, helping to proactively organize and coordinate a strong rapid education response.

Through preparedness planning, you will identify where there are gaps in your processes, resources, and capacities. You can then determine which preparedness actions will help close these gaps and reinforce your readiness to respond rapidly to a sudden-onset or escalating emergency.

For rapid response to be efficient and effective, you should, at a minimum, develop a Contingency Plan for AA and Rapid Response linked to specific scenarios and risks. This tool is a cornerstone of the Rapid Education Response Toolkit as it enables clusters and partners to design a coordinated approach and outline a plan that:

•    Describes the context through detailed risk analysis and scenario planning
•    Assesses operational constraints and maps partners’ capacity and presence
•    Clarifies coordination structures and mechanisms for action
•    Identifies triggers for activating the response
•    Details pre-agreed activities to be implemented once triggers are met
•    Sets out resourcing requirements and outlines how the response will be monitored.

By developing the contingency plan, you will identify preparedness actions that should be taken to increase readiness to anticipate and respond to different scenarios, which should be monitored through a preparedness actions tracker.

Recommended Use of Tools

Step 1: Use the Contingency plan for AA and Rapid Response template to develop a practical and implementable plan which describes the technical approach to proactively respond to sudden shocks. This technical approach should be linked to pre-identified scenarios, pre-agreed triggers, activities, and funding. 

Step 2: Identify key preparedness actions that should be taken to increase readiness to anticipate and respond to the scenarios outlined in your Contingency Plan for AA and Rapid Response. Monitor these with the preparedness actions tracker included in the template. 

Step 3: Periodically review the contingency plan and update it as necessary. You should review the contingency plan once a year, at a minimum. 
 

Ensuring you have the tools and systems in place to rapidly collect information on key needs is integral to developing an effective and evidence-based rapid response.

Key Takeaways

Ensuring you have the tools and systems in place to rapidly collect information on key needs following a shock or escalation is integral to developing an effective and evidence-based rapid response. Ensuring triggers are defined for different hazards in advance of a crisis is key to determining the scope of a crisis, along with severity indicators and thresholds that will be used to prioritize the response. Once triggers are activated, the timely collection of data on immediate needs is imperative. Conducting a Rapid Needs Assessment (RNA) can provide a quick snapshot of urgent education needs to guide prioritization of resources based on pre-defined severity indicators and thresholds. 

The first step in completing the Rapid EiE Response Framework in the Contingency Plan for AA and Rapid Response template is to determine triggers, severity indicators, and thresholds to develop a shared understanding among partners on activation, scope, and prioritization of resources. 

After defining your triggers, indicators, and thresholds, an important preparedness step is completing the Key Education Data Source List template. Use this tool to map out the key data sources available in your context. When used in conjunction with your Rapid EiE Assessment Framework to identify key information gaps, your Key Education Data Source List will show you what data other actors are producing and what data still needs to be generated through an RNA. Completing this tool in advance of a crisis will help you determine information gaps quicker.

Once rapid response triggers are activated, compiling a Rapid EiE Assessment Framework  is a critical next step in rapidly collecting information on needs

Meeting children’s immediate education needs in the first three months after a shock should be explicitly reflected in a rapid response framework.

Key Takeaways

Establishing a Rapid EiE Response Framework before a shock occurs is essential to acting within days, rather than weeks or months. This framework—developed through your Contingency Plan for AA and Rapid Response—should define clear triggers, a targeted package of lifesaving and life-sustaining activities for the first three months, and links to longer-term EiE response planning. Rapid response is not a standalone effort: by addressing immediate education needs, promoting lifesaving learning, and supporting children’s safety and psychosocial wellbeing, it creates the preconditions for learning to continue and lays the foundation to transition into more structured, sustained education responses.

Your rapid response framework should be a condensed, time-bound version of the broader EiE response, as reflected in the HNRP, Education Cluster Strategy, or equivalent. Complete the Rapid EiE Response Framework section of the Contingency Plan for AA and Rapid Response to outline what your rapid response will look like and how it will be implemented. The key components of a rapid response framework are: 
•    A clear articulation of the strategic objective(s) of the rapid response
•    Carefully defined triggers and thresholds that will trigger your rapid response intervention
•    A list of planned activities to be implemented within 3 months (maximum), with corresponding output indicators. 
•    Alignment, to the extent possible, with the INEE Minimum Standards for Education, Education Cluster standards, or other relevant frameworks.
•    A clear linkage and alignment with the longer-term EiE response framework.

Teaching and learning approaches will also look different during rapid response. Activities in this phase prioritize the lifesaving and protective functions of education—such as promoting safety and security, delivering lifesaving messages, and supporting psychosocial wellbeing, including social and emotional skills. These foundational elements are critical to ensuring continuity of learning and supporting children’s gradual re-engagement with more structured academic content. 

Planning for the transition to more structured academic learning and longer-term programming beyond the initial three months following a shock, should be integrated into the design of your rapid education response. This requires clarity on how initial interventions will be sequenced over time and support children to progress in their learning and/or reintegrate into formal education. For example, strategic transition planning may include defining pathways into formal or non-formal education (e.g., catch-up, bridging, or accelerated education), early-stage support for teachers and school management, school-level preparedness, or coordinated engagement with national and local partners and education authorities.

Recommended Use of Tools

Before a crisis happens -- preparedness activities: Develop your rapid EiE response framework

Step 1: Refer to the Menu of Rapid EiE Response Activities for illustrative activities and preparedness actions to ensure you are ready to act as soon as a crisis hits.

Step 2: Outline activities that directly address the shock(s) and the needs of specific groups (e.g., girls, boys, children with disabilities, displaced children, refugees, host community children, teachers, etc.) as identified in the Risk Analysis and Scenario Building sections of your Contingency Plan and key information coming from your SDR.  Consider each partner’s technical and operational readiness to determine what they can realistically deliver (see Section I: Preparing to Rapidly Respond for preparedness actions to assess partners’ operational and technical readiness).

Step 3: Establish clear communication lines as well as roles and responsibilities with your implementing partners.

Immediately after a crisis has happened

Step 1: Update your Rapid EiE Response Framework within the first 30 days of a crisis escalation or onset to reflect the evolving situation and needs. Incorporate data from an updated SDR or RNA, if available.

Step 2: Disseminate the revised plan to ensure all rapid response implementing partners are informed of the updated version.

Step 3: If you have not yet completed the full Contingency Plan for AA and Rapid Response prior to a shock or escalation, you may go directly to the Rapid EiE Response Framework section and complete the rest of the plan later. 

Advocating and mobilizing resources are critical to ensure children’s education needs are prioritized in the first phase of response.

Key Takeaways

Advocacy and resource mobilization are inseparable: without financing and political buy-in, even the strongest Contingency Plan for AA and Rapid Response cannot be implemented. Securing resources must begin early, with donors and stakeholders engaged from the outset so the plan is both credible and aligned with collective priorities. 

To fully operationalize your Contingency Plan for AA and Rapid Response, you must ensure that education is:
•    Recognized as lifesaving, highlighting its role in protecting children from violence, exploitation, and recruitment, and sustaining psychosocial wellbeing.
•    Prioritized in first-phase humanitarian responses, positioned alongside health, WASH, and protection as part of multi-sectoral packages.
•    Supported with dedicated yet flexible funding, so that resources can adapt rapidly to both anticipatory triggers and sudden-onset crises.

Messaging should be designed to secure both funding and buy-in from key stakeholders. Clear, evidence-based messages should emphasize education’s protective and multi-sectoral value while aligning with the priorities of the Humanitarian Reset, which emphasizes: proactivity, multi-sectorality, flexibility, localization. 

Resource mobilization for EiE is evolving under the Humanitarian Reset, which places greater emphasis on AA, increased direct funding to local and national actors, and stronger coherence between humanitarian and development financing. Partnering with key donors early in the development of your Contingency Plan for AA and Rapid Response is critical to securing buy-in, aligning priorities, and building support. This should be informed by a comprehensive stakeholder mapping exercise during the preparedness phase to identify who is present, their priorities, and entry points for collaboration.

Recommended Use of Tools

Before a crisis happens -- preparedness activities
Step 1: Conduct a robust stakeholder mapping when beginning the process of developing your Contingency Plan for AA and Rapid Response to determine potential donors and alignment with their priorities.

Step 2: Develop a comprehensive resource mobilization and advocacy plan, including: Engagement opportunities with donors (e.g., consultations as you develop your Contingency Plan; round table focused on resourcing, etc.)

Step 3: Explore the possibility of amending existing education grants to include crisis modifiers aligned with your Contingency Plan, or inclusion into new grants for the ‘longer-term’ response.

Immediately after a crisis has happened
Step 1: Activate pre-arranged funding or relevant crisis modifiers.

Step 2: Explore the possibility of re-programming flexible partner grants towards unfunded activities in your Contingency Plan.

Step 3: Update your Advocacy and Resource Mobilization Plan within first 15 days of a shock or escalation, for example:
-    Updated campaign based on actual needs
-    Emergency briefing to donors

Monitoring and evaluating the rapid response are important for helping ensure quality delivery and ensuring the response is continuously improved.

 Key Takeaways

Monitoring and evaluating a rapid EiE response must be fast, targeted, and context-sensitive. It should focus only on collecting information that directly informs the rapid response, while remaining flexible enough to adapt to challenges such as limited access to affected areas, security constraints, and limited partner capacity or human resources. Strong information management underpins this process. Its role is to ensure that relevant data reaches the right people at the right time, in a clear and usable format, to support situational understanding and decision-making. Well-organized, accessible information also strengthens donor engagement, helping unlock rapid and flexible funding and building political commitment to the response.

Monitoring the rapid response is essential to track the progress of lifesaving and life-sustaining EiE activities and to ensure that needs are met without gaps or duplication during the three-month (maximum) period of the rapid response. Country teams can adapt their existing 4W/5W tools to incorporate rapid response interventions. This is an efficient way to maintain a comprehensive overview of the entire education response—whether activities are part of a rapid intervention or the broader EiE programme.

In a rapid response, evaluation should be light, quick, and focused on learning. Rather than lengthy formal evaluations, the emphasis should be on nimble after-action reviews that capture lessons while the response is still fresh. 

Evaluating rapid responses plays a critical role in improving the quality and effectiveness of future responses. This can be done through lessons learned exercises and quick after-action reviews. These processes go beyond individual partner activities—they provide a structured space for collective reflection among partners, helping identify both successes and challenges from each stage of the rapid response, and ensuring those lessons are quickly applied to ongoing or future interventions.

Recommended Use of Tools

Before a crisis happens -- preparedness activities
Step 1: Adapt your existing 4/5W tool to integrate your rapid response activities and update it on a continuing basis (once a month at minimum), to report consolidated activities. 

Step 2: Coordination team to draft the monitoring plan section of your Contingency Plan and socialize the plan with partners.

Immediately after a crisis has happened
Step 1: Regularly update your rapid education response adapted 4/5W tool

Step 2: Partners fill in the Lessons Learned Matrix and After-Action Review Template within 2 weeks of each rapid response. Some lessons learned can directly be extracted from the RRM mission report if it exists.

Step 3: Partners regularly meet to collectively review the key successes and issues and decide adjustments for future interventions.