Publications
Partners
- 13 million children were affected by the closure of 5 500 schools at the end of 2021.
- Burkina Faso saw the closure of 3 280 schools followed by Mali, 1 621, and 611 in Niger.
- Insurgents have enlarged their scope of action in the region.
An estimated 13 million children were affected by the closure of 5 500 schools at the end of 2021 in the Sahel region, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in its latest report.
The Sahel region covers Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Gambia, Guinea, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal.
For children in these countries, education as a basic human right was taken away through conflict.
"Attacks on schools have exacerbated existing structural challenges to education for all (poverty, poor school infrastructure, low attendance rate, insufficient number of well-trained teachers), and, in some cases, have reversed decades of progress," the NRC said in the report.
In Burkina Faso, 3 280 schools were shut down, followed by Mali with 1 621 and 611 in Niger.
READ | Businessman buys Zambian president's signature red jacket for R2m at auction
Only children in refugee camps for Internally Displaced People (IDPs) had access to education but despite this, they continue to feel unsafe because of sporadic attacks on their communities by insurgents.
NRC has embarked on a Better Learning Programme (BLP) which aims to improve learning capacity by integrating techniques for coping with stress and adversity into daily teaching and learning.
The organisation said it assessed the gravity of the problems faced by children in Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali.
- 53% of the children don't feel safe inside the school;
- 62% of them cannot concentrate when doing schoolwork;
- and 64% of the students have little to no hope in the future;
- 72% of children need additional school support;
- 67% of children [are] in need of additional support from their family members;
- and 91% of children have low self-regulation skills/awareness."
NRC also noted that beyond the Sahel region, education was the least considered issue by humanitarian aid givers.
READ | With R2500, we can smuggle you into SA - Zimbabwe traffickers
"Education has been neglected for far too long in humanitarian responses to conflict and displacement. Without appropriate mitigation and immediate response measures this continued exposure to stress and violence in addition to disrupted access to education will have dramatic long-term psychosocial consequences on children," the NRC said.
It warned that the long-term effect of children's failure to access education and nutrition was stunted socio-economic development, resulting in a whole generation of children falling behind.
Earlier this month, Vera Songwe, the executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), in her address at the opening of the 40th African Union Ordinary Session of the Executive Council, warned that uneducated and undernourished children were a negative for Africa's future.
According to ReliefWeb, a humanitarian information portal, the Sahel crisis entered its tenth year. Despite the transnational nature of the crisis, each country had experienced different patterns of violence and transformation amid a protracted conflict.
The Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) and the Al Qaeda-affiliated Jama'at Nusrat Al Islam Wal Muslimin (JNIM) and some smaller Jihadist militant groups had widened its scope of action.
The News24 Africa Desk is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation. The stories produced through the Africa Desk and the opinions and statements that may be contained herein do not reflect those of the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
