Unpacking school safety: Towards a more comprehensive concept of school safety

Session Submission Type: Group Panel

Description of Session

Global events including increasing attacks on education, ongoing displacement due to conflict and disasters have put a spotlight on the importance of ensuring safe and protective learning environments for children, youth and educational personnel. While there is growing momentum for safe schools and learning, there is less known about the linkages between safety and learning. Currently, the development community lacks both a comprehensive definition of safe schools and a way in which to measure and track achievement in this area.

This panel will explore the multiple constructs that currently exist around school safety, and then provide specific examples from Lebanon, Philippines, Mexico, Timor-Leste, and Guatemala to draw out the variations and context specific elements finally proposing the need for a research agenda that systematically explores and develops evidence for improving how we program and measure the effects of safer school initiatives.

This panel is linked to the theme Ubuntu, a humanist education globally bringing a different perspective to achieving quality education for all.

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Chair

• Anita Anastacio, ChildFund International

Individual Presentations

• Constructs of School Safety - Nina Papadopoulos, USAID

• Efforts to reduce peer violence in school - Janella Nelson, ChildFund International

• The link between Social Emotional skills and academic outcomes: A case for Syrian children - Jennifer Sklar, International Rescue Committee

• When non-violence becomes an educational outcome: resilience as a transformative approach - Joel Reyes, World Bank

Discussant

• Martha Saldinger, Winrock International