Schooling in the face of protest: Supporting Primary schools to make their students resilient in post-conflict settings in Northern Ethiopia

• In Event: Education and Activism Redux I

Proposal

Ethiopia has been impacted by various kinds of protest since COVID-19:

• The North Ethiopia Conflict between the regional government of Tigray and the Federal Government was a form of protest by the Tigray authorities.
• The current conflict in Amhara between the Fanos (local militia) and the Federal Defense Force is a rejection of the disarmament of regional militias, agreed to by the Federal and Tigray regional authorities as part of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement of November 2022.
• The United States Government protested the North Ethiopia Conflict by suspending development funding to Ethiopia and direct support to the Ethiopian Government.

The USAID READ II Education Recovery Activity did not play a direct role in shaping the protests. However, the project found space to mount its own protest by supporting conflict-affected schools in Northern Ethiopia to transform the situation of thousands of children so that they can return to school and learn despite the turmoil. READ II’s work consisted of:

• Providing scholastic stationery, teaching and other materials so children can re-enroll at school and receive education.
• Providing education and support to children displaced by conflict to protect children's rights and to promote their wellbeing.
• Training teachers on making their classrooms welcoming and child friendly.
• Training gender club coordinators to advance gender equity and address school-related gender-based violence.
• Training school directors to manage the crisis locally and lead the resumption of education is a safe environment.
• Raising awareness of the conflict and its impact on children to put a human face on the conflict and to show the world the impact on children.
• Mobilizing parents and communities to support school recovery and re-enroll their children.
• Building community among people in conflict-affected areas to create a sense of solidarity and support, which made people more willing to speak out against injustice.

This paper explores how the READ II Education Recovery Activity ‘protested’ in its programming the dire reality facing children who have been caught up in conflict. The presenters will outline interventions by the project which set out to create a safe and caring environment at the classroom, whole-school, and community levels, as well as extra care for those children who suffered severe trauma and need external psychological, medical and other support. They will also discuss results achieved and suggest what more needs to be done to improve the quality of education long-term. The paper will draw from different assessments conducted by the project and third parties, and speak to how the assessments are being used to understand the impact on beneficiaries.

1. Materials

READ II Education Recovery Activity played a vital role in adapting its programming to support children to continue learning in the most difficult circumstances. In many communities, parents and children were displaced and schooling stopped. READ II Education Recovery Activity took initiative to mount ‘’back-to-school” campaigns and provided learning and teaching materials, including biscuits, that attracted parents/guardians to enroll their children in school and ensured their continued learning. The provision of learning materials helped most families who lost their assets during the conflict and displacement. In some areas, the conflict disrupted schooling (and livelihoods) for a long period, which will require several years of recovery. Therefore, ongoing support is needed for schools and communities to recover fully.


2. Teachers

To support the healing of traumatized children, teachers and parents, READ II Education Recovery provided training on PSS/PSS/SEL for teachers, coaches, school leaders and communities.
One of the new experiences for teachers in Ethiopia is integrating SEL competencies/strategies such as brain building, emotion regulation, positive social skills, conflict resolution, and perseverance in their daily teaching activities.
Using SEL strategies in the classroom helped teachers with positive classroom management and stress reduction techniques to improve students’ positive social wellbeing and regulate their emotions. According to a 2023 READ II Education Recovery Skills Application Assessment Report, the most common practices in SEL integration used by teachers in Amhara and Afar regions are encouraging students to work in pairs/small groups during to their daily lessons and using play-based teaching approaches.
Some of the challenges observed show that some students and teachers still feel stress because of their past experiences and currently on-going conflicts in different places.

3. Gender
School-Related Gender-based Violence (SRGBV) is one of the challenges that negatively affect adolescent girls' school performance. Although the issue affects girls and boys worldwide, the severity and magnitude of the problem vary from place to place. Following the conflict and hostilities, the risk of SRGBV is overwhelming for students, especially for adolescent girls as the social and structural protections are damaged. The conflict affects schools structurally and socially as they reopen with damaged infrastructure, fences, toilets, and classrooms, and weakened social and political structures to protect students, especially adolescent girls. In addition, the education system is overwhelmed by the need to deliver accelerated education at the expense of extracurricular activities such as GC (Gender Club). READ II Education Recovery Activity planned to intervene and narrow the education system gap in handling (responding and preventing) SRGBV and reassure families to let adolescent girls attend schools by strengthening school GC response and prevent SRGBV.

4. School Administrators

READ II provided capacity building training to school administrators on School Crisis Management, which enabled them to develop and drive school crisis management plans covering issues such as assessing damage, mobilizing resources from the community, providing psychological first aid (PFA), and psychosocial support (PSS) to children and supporting teachers to integrate social-emotional learning (SEL) in regular classroom instruction, screening, and support of children for referral pathway to minimize the trauma and stress children faced, prevention and response on School-Related Gender-Based Violence (SRBV), conflict resolution and peacebuilding. The training underlined school administrators’ need to be committed to tackling crises and being resilient. Complementing a shared school-level disaster preparedness and management action plan with establishing a crisis management team have been identified as key roles and responsibilities of the school administrators.

Authors

• TwensQueen Jean-Baptiste, Creative Associates International

• Beminet Kelemu, Creative Associates International Inc.