Global Initiative Bi-weekly Newsletter
October 15th to 27th 2025
LEBANON
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced on Friday that the number of Syrian refugees who have returned from Lebanon to Syria has reached 300,000 since the beginning of 2025.
Lisa Abu Khaled, UNHCR’s media officer, told the Anadolu Agency that the sixth batch of returnees departed on Oct. 23 through the Arida border crossing in northern Lebanon, with around 400 refugees heading to areas in Homs and Idlib.The latest returns are part of the voluntary repatriation program organized by the Lebanese government in coordination with the Syrian transitional government and under UNHCR supervision.
The Lebanese government has decided to allow all Syrian refugee children, including those without legal papers, to enroll in public schools. The new policy applies to the afternoon school shifts and aims to help thousands of children who have been out of school.
This move was confirmed by the Ministry of Education after the Cabinet approved it on October 9. It means that Syrian children can now be enrolled even if they don’t have a residency permit or refugee ID from the United Nations. Schools will collect basic information like the child’s name, birth date, and parents’ names. This data will then be shared with Lebanon’s General Security.
RWANDA
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly reshaping learning and working, and Rwanda is positioning itself to be among Africa’s frontrunners in using it to transform education.
During the Future of Education and Work in Africa (FEWA) AI Summit, held on October 23 at Kigali Convention Centre alongside the Mobile World Congress (MWC) Africa 2025, education leaders and innovators discussed how AI could revolutionize learning and teaching across the continent. Speaking at the summit, the Minister of Education Joseph Nsengimana emphasized that Rwanda views AI as a tool to enhance education rather than replace the human element in classrooms. He noted that the country has already embarked on a journey to integrate AI in schools as part of efforts to transform teaching and learning and deliver quality education.
KENYA
Hundreds of low-income and refugee students across East Africa are set to access international higher education opportunities after African NGO Malengo secured Sh1.7 billion ($12.9 million) from The Shapiro Foundation.
The impact investment will strengthen Malengo's vocational training and university sponsorship programs across Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda, boosting the earning potential of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Founded in 2021 by Cornell University Professor Johannes Haushofer, Malengo promotes international educational migration as a pathway to economic empowerment. The organization has already enrolled over 500 scholars, helping them transition from living on Sh185 per day to graduate careers in Europe earning starting salaries above Sh5.3 million annually.
The Board of Directors of the African Development Fund, the African Development Bank Group’s concessional lending arm, has approved a loan of $73.31 million to strengthen science and technology education at the tertiary level.
Under the second phase of the Support to Higher Education, Science and Technology Project – (HEST II), the funding will support the upgrade of 19 public universities with modern laboratories, teaching equipment and digital learning facilities. The financing will also be used to establish three centres of excellence in engineering, as well as a science and technology park that will enable students and researchers to turn ideas into business and industry solutions. The project will fund scholarships for 103 university lecturers, retrain staff to match new technology needs and deploy a competency-based education curriculum....
SOUTH AFRICA
Teraco, a Digital Realty company and provider of interconnection platforms and vendor-neutral colocation data centres, today announced a five-year support grant extension to the South African Broadband Education Networks (SABEN) via the Teraco Connect Foundation.
In 2020, Teraco signed a five-year grant, which the company has now extended for a further five years to 2030 worth a cumulative R17.5 million. The funding from Teraco will support the national drive by SABEN to end bandwidth poverty among schools and public Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges in South Africa. SABEN is a non-profit company, part of South Africa’s National Research and Education Network (NREN), serving as the sole provider of these services to public TVET colleges across the country.
VIETNAM
International students in Vietnam could be granted work rights for up to 20 hours a week, under a new proposal announced by the country’s Ministry of Education and Training.
The idea was one of several education and training policies recently floated by government ministers for consideration by the National Assembly, according to local media reports. Ministers have reportedly said that the proposal would help put Vietnam on a par with other countries, such as the UK and the US, where 20 hours work per week is already permitted. Mark Ashwill, managing director of education consulting company Capstone Vietnam, said the proposal was driven by the government’s desire to attract more international students.
Prof. Dr Hoang Van Kiem, Senior IT Advisor of Saigon International University (SIU), commented that AI is fundamentally changing teaching and learning at the university level. Teaching once revolved around transmitting knowledge.
Today, AI makes knowledge “open, dynamic, and instantaneous,” forcing lecturers to shift from “knowledge transmitters” to “coaches” of critical thinking and creativity. AI supports this by designing personalized roadmaps, generating real-time content, and saving faculty time on administrative burdens, allowing them to focus on high-level research. This is creating a “lifelong learning with AI” model, where faculty, students, and intelligent systems “co-create” knowledge together. In the realm of scientific research, AI has emerged as both a powerful creative tool and a “co-author” of new knowledge.
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