At the 70th Annual Edition of the 2026 Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) Conference in San Francisco, United States of America, as colleagues made technological adjustments on the sound and screen glitches and while patiently keeping the room together, there was already a demonstration of what the sessions themselves would later argue: that the skills we often describe as life skills, social and emotional learning, or 21st-century competencies are not abstract ideas. They are visible in the way people solve problems, regulate emotion, make space for others and keep moving when things do not go to plan.
That is one reason we left these conversations with more than notes. We left with a stronger conviction that education becomes a force for social cohesion not because systems declare it so, but because classrooms, schools and communities are deliberately organised to help children live with others in humane, confident and responsible ways. Across two sessions in which Uwezo Uganda and counterparts presented on 29th March 2026, one on building cohesive societies through education and another on refugee access, belonging and learning, a common message kept resurfacing: if we want education to hold divided societies together, we must look closely at how learning is actually experienced.
One of the clearest reflections came from a presentation on India’s Happiness Curriculum by Dream a Dream that reinforced the point that, wellbeing cannot be added to schooling like an extra topic on a timetable. Instead, it grows in the everyday life of the classroom—particularly—in how teachers listen, how they relate to learners, whether children feel safe, and whether expression is welcomed or suppressed. That insight stayed with us because it asked an uncomfortable question. When we say we want children to become empathetic, reflective and resilient, what kind of classroom are we actually building around them?
Photos of session chairs, discussants and presenters after the two sessions on Systems-Level Approaches to Nurturing 21st-Century Skills for Social Cohesion in Diverse Contexts, and Education Policy and Practice for Refugees and Migrants.
That same tension between aspiration and practice ran through the presentations from the Action for Life Skills and Values (ALiVE) in East Africa. In Zanzibar, one presentation from Milele Zanzibar Foundation described a system that already knew the kind of young people it hoped to nurture—who were; confident, curious and self-reliant learners able to contribute to thriving communities. Albeit with a clear ambition, the missing piece was a shared understanding of what those skills meant in context and how they could be translated into teaching, assessment and support for teachers. Through ALiVE’s work, more than 45,000 adolescents were assessed using performance- and scenario-based tasks, helping to show that these skills can be defined, observed and measured in ways that make sense locally. For us, that was a reminder that contextualisation is not a side conversation and that it is where the actual work lies.
Uganda’s own contribution pushed this reflection further, with Luigi Giussani Foundation (LGF)’s, Luigi Giussani Institute of Higher Education (LGIHE)’s and Uwezo Uganda’s own shared work on learning progressions designed to help teachers move from policy language to classroom practice. The main takeaway from these presentations was that teachers expected to foster problem-solving, collaboration, and other life skills need more than just good intentions—but they also require a clear understanding of how those skills progress across different ages and grades, what they look like in real classroom practice, and how they can be supported during regular lessons. Piloting learning progressions across two countries demonstrated to us that it is possible to move from abstract rhetoric to tools teachers can actually use. One line from the session captured this beautifully;
“teachers are not merely implementers of reform; they are translators of it.”
The presentation from Mizizi Elimu Africa from Kenya reinforced that lesson through a whole-school approach to values-based education, where it presented work showcasing that values become meaningful when they are lived across school culture, leadership, parents and the wider community as opposed to being treated as an issue that sits in a single lesson. Their pilot findings that reached 79 schools across 19 counties and nearly 76,000 learners, suggested that change becomes more visible when school leadership owns the process, when teachers receive ongoing support, and when parents are treated as part of the learning environment rather than as distant observers.
Then, Stephen H Bayley from the International Rescue Committee (IRC) stepped in, and spoke about children growing up in Ethiopia and South Sudan, places where conflict is not a headline but a daily reality. He had looked at Social Emotional Learning (SEL)—especially what helps these children learn to manage their emotions, care for others, and solve problems peacefully. What he found was both surprising and moving in that a fancy curriculum mattered far less than something much simpler: whether a child felt safe at school and trusted their teacher. In South Sudan, for instance, girls showed great empathy but often struggled to control their own strong feelings. In his other key finding in Ethiopia, schools that tried a whole-school approach built around play, saw real progress. But across both countries, a child who feels safe and seen is a child who can learn.
When Meghan C Mahoney from Educate! offered her reflections, she remarked that the gap students face when they leave school is not going to be filled by producing high scores on high-stakes exams. What was needed instead, she argued, is a complete re-orientation of the entire education system towards building socio-emotional skills. She appreciated that the presentations had focused on three connected things. First, defining what those skills actually mean in each local context, because without coherence—no one can swim in the same direction. Second, understanding learning progressions as the tangible steps from not having a skill to having it. And third, creating fertile classroom and school environments where those skills can grow. Her closing point observed that—we cannot afford to work in one space alone and that research, policy, teacher support, and curriculum; all have to move together, because without that coherence we will keep struggling to make lasting change.
By the afternoon session on refugees and migrants, the conversation moved from aspiration to a more urgent terrain that sought answers to the question; what does social cohesion mean where schooling is already under severe strain? Here Uwezo Uganda’s own research brought the issue into sharp focus—by presenting findings from refugee-hosting schools in West Nile, where Mary Goretti Nakabugo (Executive Director, Uwezo Uganda) showed how mainstream schools are carrying both possibility and pressure. In the schools studied, refugee learners made up about 61 percent of enrolment while refugee presence had also attracted additional capitation, classrooms, water points, learning materials and teaching assistants. Belonging can’t really take hold when one teacher is stretched across 200 or 300 children, when attendance during fieldwork was alarmingly low, and when only 15 percent of Primary Three to Six students can read a Primary Two-level text.
What moved us most is how these findings broke simple stories, take, for instance, cases where many children felt safe at school, but fewer felt comfortable speaking, especially refugees. We also learnt that only about a quarter of refugee learners felt at ease speaking in front of teachers, compared to roughly six in ten nationals. That gap matters a lot because access is not the same as participation. This is so because, a child can be physically present yet still stand on the sidelines. Faridah Nassereka’s (Senior Research Officer, Uwezo Uganda) second presentation widened the picture through citizen-led assessment across four refugee-hosting districts, reaching 5,000 children, 2,400 households, and 120 schools. This proved that learning can be measured even in emergencies and that community evidence can push systems toward fairer decisions. It also overturned assumptions as the evidence unearthed that in some districts, refugee children performed as well as or better than host communities—moreover—deep gaps remained in textbooks, meals, and other essentials that make learning possible.
The wider dialogue in that afternoon session deepened the reflection, starting with presenters on the Thai–Myanmar border who described parallel learning systems overflowing with children and unable to provide enough places. No doubt, the demand for education can remain high even when formal structures fail. Another paper on Southeast Asian refugee communities in the United States of America suggested that educational outcomes are shaped not by culture in any simplistic sense but by the interaction between history, memory and material conditions. Across these settings, one truth became clearer, namely that belonging is not produced by proximity alone but must be built through institutions that recognise children fully, support teachers honestly and address inequality directly.
The deepest insight from these sessions is that social cohesion in education never comes from a single intervention but rather builds up through many small choices. It shows up when a system defines its goals clearly instead of leaving teachers to guess, when a school treats values as daily habits rather than posters on a wall, when refugee children are truly heard rather than being merely admitted, and when research strengthens local understanding and action as opposed to only extracting from communities. One contributor offered a memorable contrast, arguing that research in crisis settings should behave more like a bee than a mosquito. For a bee cross-pollinates, leaves something behind, and helps life grow, and that is the model to follow.
The image of a safe classroom, a trusted teacher, a child who can speak, and a system that learns from evidence has stayed with us. These may sound ordinary, yet in divided and fragile settings they are not ordinary at all. They are the quiet architecture of cohesion, and they are the kind of work education must keep doing if it is to help hold us together.