Education in Emergencies & Conflict

A global study of attacks on schools, universities, their students and staff, in 2020 and 2021.

Education is under attack around the world. From Afghanistan to Colombia, Mali to Thailand, students and teachers are killed, raped, and abducted, while schools and universities are bombed, burned down, and used for military purposes.

Around the world, higher education communities are overwhelmed by frequent attacks on scholars, students, staff, and their institutions. State and non-state actors, including armed militant and extremist groups, police and military forces, government authorities, off-campus groups, and even members of higher education communities, among others, carry out these attacks, which often result in deaths, injuries, and deprivations of liberty.

One of the most serious consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the disruption of children’s education worldwide with the closure of schools for public health reasons. Projections from UNESCO Institute for Statistics show that nearly 100 million children across eight age cohorts would move below the minimum proficiency threshold in reading in 2020 due to the pandemic (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2021).

On 29 October 2021, the 15-member UN Security council adopted a unanimous resolution, hailed as the first of its kind, which condemns attacks against schools, children and teachers and urges conflict parties to immediately safeguard the right to education. Importantly, the resolution makes explicit the links between education, peace and security. 

This report presents information collected in the scope of the Lusophone Network for the Right to Education (ReLus) on the situation of guaranteeing the right to education during the moment of emergency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. It is launched as part of the Brazilian Action Week for Education 2021 and intends to present a comparative exploratory study on the challenges faced in the context of different Portuguese-speaking countries and the emergency policies adopted.

This list contains 51 indicators relevant to the monitoring of education under attack. They are divided into four sections - Attacks on schools and universities; Attacks on students, teachers and other educational personnel; Military use of schools and universities; and transversal or cross cutting indicators, which apply to more than one category and that are crucial to the analysis from a human rights’ perspective.

Each indicator is accompanied by comments and supplementary detail. 

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