This blog was written by Teddy Mutoni, Carolina Holland-Szyp, Martin Ariapa, John Muhangyi, Dinah Patience Akurut, Eduard Francois Beukman, Philip Talemwa, Gauthier Marchais and Cyril Brandt.
As humanitarian funding tightens alongside advancing localisation efforts, responsibility for sustaining education systems in crisis‑affected contexts is increasingly borne by teachers. This blog draws on a sub‑national stakeholder engagement workshop held in January 2026 in Uganda’s refugee‑hosting districts, which involved national and district education actors and humanitarian partners. It argues that aid contraction is intensifying teacher strain without corresponding investment in the local support systems that underpin their wellbeing and retention.
Where international shifts meet local systems
Uganda is often highlighted as a global example of refugee inclusion. Yet in districts such as Terego, Madi Okollo, Yumbe and Kitgum, schools are operating under severe strain as they serve growing numbers of refugee and host-community learners. While enrolment and access remain policy priorities, the conditions of those holding the system together (teachers) are far less visible.
This strain is unfolding against major global shifts. Localisation agendas, including within education through networks such as the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), call for stronger national and sub-national ownership. More recently, humanitarian funding is receding, and support for recurrent education-related costs (particularly salaries) remains limited.
At district-level, this tension is tangible. Stakeholders consistently highlighted that teacher wellbeing and teacher retention are closely linked, and both reflect wider system conditions that cannot be fixed through pay alone. Teachers described working under the ‘full weight’ of crisis education: economic insecurity, harsh living and working conditions, and sustained psychosocial strain. These pressures accumulate over time, shaping whether teachers remain in post.
Teacher attrition, in this sense, is not simply an individual decision, but reflects wider pressures on teacher wellbeing. It signals deeper system stress, shaped by governance arrangements and everyday practices operating at teacher, school, community and district levels.
The hidden costs of current financing models
Economic precarity sits at the centre of this dynamic, driving both adverse wellbeing and attrition. In refugee-hosting areas, education provision relies heavily on short-term humanitarian funding, with declining coverage of recurrent costs such as salaries, despite evidence that it can play a crucial role in supporting teacher wellbeing in such contexts. Stakeholders were clear: the issue is not only low pay, but salary instability and incoherence, undermining wellbeing. Teachers described delayed payments, shifting contracts and unequal pay within the same school, depending on which organisation supports them. Many rely on loans with high interest rates to meet basic needs, shrinking already limited incomes. These issues shape teachers’ professional identity, status and sense of legitimacy.
When financing models exclude recurrent costs, the burden of sustaining the system is quietly transferred to teachers themselves. In hard-to-reach areas with few alternative livelihoods, staying in post may not necessarily reflect security or satisfaction, but rather the normalisation of uncertainty as a governing condition.
Living and working conditions under pressure
Beyond salaries, the everyday structural conditions in which teachers live and work in refugee‑hosting districts place intense demands on their physical and mental wellbeing. Many lack secure housing, electricity, clean water and reliable transport. Long journeys to school (often on foot) leave teachers exhausted before lessons begin, while the absence of electricity limits lesson preparation and marking outside school hours.
Institutional structures frequently worsen this strain. Limited promotion pathways, inconsistent appraisal systems and insecure contracts signal that effort and experience may not lead to professional growth. Remaining at the same grade for years erodes motivation and commitment.
Inside classrooms, workloads are overwhelming. Extreme pupil-teacher ratios (sometimes over 300 learners per teacher) combine with chronic shortages of textbooks and teaching materials. Teachers described struggling to support learners meaningfully while managing their own stress and fatigue.
Importantly, adverse wellbeing may not always translate into immediate exit. In contexts characterised by insecurity and limited alternatives, teachers may stay despite exhaustion. But staying under these conditions makes long-term retention (especially in remote postings) increasingly fragile.
Psychosocial strain and weakened support systems
Teaching in crises contexts involves heavy emotional labour. Teachers routinely support learners affected by displacement, trauma and loss, while receiving little structured psychosocial support themselves. Efforts to balance their own stress with students’ needs contributes to burnout and emotional disengagement.
Stakeholders also pointed to the gradual weakening of local support systems around schools, crucial for teachers’ social anchoring and sense of belonging, but often overlooked. Parents, community and religious leaders and partner organisations have traditionally played important roles supporting learner discipline, reinforcing the value of education, or providing materials and co-curricular activities. As partner presence declines and communities face their own pressures, questions emerge about how these forms of shared responsibility can be sustained and strengthened over time.
The result is a form of expansion of the role of teachers, as has been shown in the literature on refugee teachers. Teachers increasingly absorb social and administrative responsibilities sitting beyond their formal role. Stress intensifies, isolation grows, and for some, attrition follows. For those who remain, retention may reflect informal governance arrangements that stabilise staffing while transferring risk and insecurity onto teachers.
Rethinking how teachers are supported
These insights point to a clear conclusion: piecemeal solutions treat symptoms rather than causes. Teacher retention cannot be addressed without tackling teacher wellbeing, and wellbeing is shaped by interconnected economic, structural and psychosocial factors.
These insights also speak to a live debate in the sector. Shifting responsibility to sub-national systems without long-term funding risks deepening system strain. If localisation is to strengthen resilience rather than redistribute risk, teachers must not be the shock-absorbers of aid contraction.
The Drivers of Teacher Wellbeing and Retention in Contexts of Protracted Violence and Displacement research project, led by the Institute of Development Studies with partners including Luigi Giussani Foundation, Oxfam and Institut Supérieur Pédagogique de Bukavu (and supported by Finnish National Agency for Education), builds on these insights. Rather than focusing only on why teachers leave, the research examines how wellbeing can be supported and retention strengthened in crisis-affected regions of Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. By centring teacher experiences and leveraging local expertise, the study aims to inform more sustainable, responsive and context-appropriate approaches to supporting teachers, and, by extension, the education systems they sustain.
Funder acknowledgment
This publication was funded by the European Union, under the Regional Teachers Initiative for Africa’s Window 3, implemented by the Finnish National Agency for Education. Its contents are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.
