To mark the birthday of women’s rights and education activist Malala Yousafzai, the EFA (Education for All) Global Monitoring Team has released a policy paper entitled “Children Still Battling to Go to School.” The paper highlights the often-overlooked issue of education in the world’s conflict zones, updating figures from the EFA’s 2011 report on the same subject.
According to the new paper, 28.5 million children in conflict-affected areas do not attend school. These children make up half of the total number of out-of-school children worldwide. Though efforts have been made to reduce the overall number of out-of-school children, this has not affected those in conflict zones: their number is actually increasing.
The EFA notes that 95% of these children live in low and lower middle income countries: 12.6 million in sub-Saharan Africa, 5.3 million in Asia, and 4 million in Arab states. Girls account for 55% of the total, and are often affected by the rape and sexual violence that accompany armed conflicts.
Compounding the problems of safety, displacement, and destroyed infrastructure, education systems in conflict-affected countries often receive little or no international humanitarian aid. According to the EFA the percentage of total humanitarian aid allotted to education decreased to 1.2% in 2012.
The EFA’s paper calls for action on behalf of the out-of-school children in conflict zones. The Global Monitoring Team recommends more accountability for human rights violations, a re-prioritizing of global aid, and stronger rights for displaced people. Crucially, the EFA states, the world must take note of the ways in which failures in education can contribute to global conflict.
“The crisis of education in conflict is no longer hidden,” concludes the report, “there is no excuse for not helping to bring it to an end.”
The full EFA policy paper can be found here.
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Written by Carla Drumhiller Smith