Former prime minister Julia Gillard is campaigning to give a million Syrian refugee children hope by funding their schooling in surrounding countries.

Ms Gillard has joined former British prime minister Gordon Brown in a bid to convince the international community to raise $US750 million ($A1.07 billion) for the school places in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.

The pair were in a panel discussion at the Frontline media club in London on Monday night ahead of a key United Nations emergency funding conference for Syria to be held in the British capital on February 4.

As chair of the Global Partnership for Education, Ms Gillard said the Syrian crisis had focused the minds of global leaders.

She said Syrian children had been used to going to school in a high-performing system relative to the rest of the Middle East.

"Now all of their lives have been changed and cast into uncertainty, conflict.

"They will have seen horrible things, experienced dreadful things and amongst their many losses is their daily engagement with learning and that sense of hope for the future.

Mr Brown, who is UN Special Envoy for Global Education, said about half of the 12 million displaced people out of Syria were children who were in danger of becoming a "lost generation".

He said investing in schooling for such children would help slow the exodus of refugees to Europe and also help counter the scourges of child marriage, child trafficking and child labour.

"And if you wanted to do something about extremist influences benefiting from this discontent that is bound to arise when young people are on the streets then you would want to do something about education."

Ms Gillard said that beyond Syria there was an ongoing need for more resources to ensure children in poor developing countries across the world went to school and received quality schooling.

"I don't think anybody can rest easy when we know for example in sub-Saharan Africa on current rates of change it will be the best part of a 100 years before we see a generation of girls who universally go to school," she told reporters after the panel discussion.

She said many Australians were charitable-minded people who sought to make a difference and she urged them to keep giving.