The education sector in response, resilience and recovery during and after violent conflicts

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

An estimated 128 million children are out of school in crisis-affected countries.During conflict, schools are often destroyed or become unsafe. Students are forced out of school, making them more vulnerable to violence, permanent displacement, early marriage and forced labor. When displaced, children have no guarantee that they will be able to attend school when they arrive at a safer destination.Ensuring that children have access to education during conflict and crises protects their rights, provides a sense of normalcy, and fosters resilience, inclusion and tolerance, supporting the long-term processes of recovery and peacebuilding.

This panel protests the inappropriate notion that education is simply a longer-term effort, too slow to respond in crises and thought to be about rebuilding schools, re-supplying materials and re-training teachers - and doing this only after a conflict has ended. Debunking this concept, the panel demonstrates critical acts playing out today in Rwanda, Columbia, Pakistan and Nigeria where interventions during and after violent conflict are taking root and continuing. Thus, these interventions are serving as an immediate response, strengthening young people’s resilience in the face of violence, and uniquely suited to address recovery needs early at all levels of schooling, for learners both in and out of school.

Education starts early and stays the course by bringing immediate-term benefits in conflict areas when gathering people together, helping them solve problems, and giving them a path forward amidst chaos. Specifically, we illustrate education programs offering immediate access to education including remedial learning, promotion of inclusion, and provision of psychosocial support to address biases and trauma that may otherwise, continue to fuel a conflict or exacerbate existing violence.

Sub Unit

• Education in Conflict and Emergencies SIG

Chair

• Wendy Wheaton, USAID

Individual Presentations

• Promoting Family Resilience with Father Engagement in Early Child Development: Findings from a Hybrid Type 2 Cluster Randomized Trial in Rwanda - Candace J Black, Boston College

• Education for resilience with Pakistani students impacted by violence - Haider Fancy, New York University

• Cutural adaptation of a family strengthening intervention to improve early childhood development and reduce violence among families in Colombia - Wendy Wheaton, USAID

• Insurgency as Protest and Resistance and its Nexus with Education Provision - Vanita Datta, USAID

Discussants

• Dana Burde, New York University

• Kadiatou Cisse Abbassi, Plan International USA