UNICEF
Conflict and political upheaval across the Middle East and North Africa are preventing more than 13 million children from going to school, according to a UNICEF report released in September 2015.
The report, “Education Under Fire,” focuses on the impact of violence on schoolchildren and education systems in nine countries, including Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, that have been impacted by violence.
Attacks on schools and education infrastructure are one key reason why many children do not attend classes. In Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya alone, nearly 9,000 schools are out of use because they have been damaged, destroyed, are being used to shelter displaced civilians or have been taken over by terrorists.
Other factors include the fear that drives thousands of teachers to abandon their posts or keeps parents from sending their children to school because of what might happen to them along the way.
“The destructive impact of conflict is being felt by children right across the region,” said Peter Salama, regional director of UNICEF in the Middle East and North Africa. “It’s not just the physical damage being done to schools, but the despair felt by a generation of schoolchildren who see their hopes and futures shattered.”
The report highlights a range of initiatives — including the use of self-learning and expanded learning spaces — that help children learn even in the most desperate of circumstances. But it says that the funding that such work receives is not commensurate with the burgeoning needs, despite the fact that children and parents caught up in conflict overwhelmingly identify education as their number one priority.
In addition, the reports calls on the international community, host governments, policymakers, the private sector and other partners to reduce the number of children out of school through the expansion of informal education services especially for vulnerable children. It also asks for more support to national education systems in conflict-hit countries and host communities to expand learning spaces, recruit and train teachers and provide learning materials.