The destruction of school buildings and entire education systems in Gaza, Ukraine and other war-torn countries has created a dangerous situation for students trying to get the education they need to give their countries a better future.
According to a report this year from the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, there will be 6,000 physical attacks on educational institutions in 2022 and 2023, a 20 percent increase from the previous two years.
Classrooms have been destroyed or turned into shelters, while the call for education is loud and clear. After all, education can be the most important way to secure the path to peace for the country in question and to keep children out of dangerous situations as adults.
“It is really, really important for countries and society at large to ensure that children continue to go to school, even if the school is bombed or destroyed,” said Laura Frigenti, CEO of the Global Partnership for Education.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Education, 90 percent of schools in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed or damaged and more than 600,000 children have not attended school since the war began in October last year.
Ukrainian officials reported last year that 3,790 educational institutions had been damaged or destroyed since the Russian invasion in February 2022.
Frigenti said Ukraine has the infrastructure so her group can help “promote access to education” and provide tablets to students if they have to study remotely due to the war or COVID-19.
“In many other places … I think of too many countries that are dealing with infrastructure” that is creating difficulties for education, she said.
“Everything has to be adapted to the specific situation in the country and the specific context. But I would say that the common theme, the common answer, is that we have to keep the children in school,” Frigenti added, “whether you take them to the center of the village, under a tree, and you teach them there, whatever you can do to create a classroom.”
And even if there is a suitable location to educate children, it can be difficult to focus on the conflict around them.
Anav Silverman Peretz, an English teacher who works at Zin Elementary School in southern Israel, told The Hill that thousands of people, including from towns in Gaza, came to the area after Oct. 7, including many new children in classrooms.
“Among those students were war evacuees, and we’re talking about students whose families had experienced untold horrors when they were in the shelters when Hamas attacked — some of them new people who, you know, friends or family members who were killed. Others had friends who — their school friends — were abducted to Gaza. That made teaching a challenge last year,” Peretz said.
She added that in her 16 years as a teacher there, “I can honestly say that last year was one of the most difficult years because the children who came to our school, you know, have had some really traumatic experiences,” she added.
At the start of the current school year, students had to do several bomb shelter exercises due to the heavy fighting in the region.
“The students themselves, it’s a chance to get out of math class, any class, you know, and go hang out with their friends. Our shelter serves as a kind of shelter for the seventh and eighth graders and the sixth graders, so a lot of students in this one space,” Peretz said. “I also think it depends on what the news is in general, but … we use humor with my students when it comes to these exercises, you know, to just make it a more lighthearted experience.”
Zin Elementary has hired additional mental health professionals and teachers have been working hard to find ways to help students with both their studies and their feelings.
“I think that was really the biggest challenge as a teacher last year, you know, not to have a meltdown when you got the really bad news,” Peretz said.
Experts say the death and destruction that comes with armed conflict leaves deep scars, but it is also important not to ignore the damage caused by the daily grind of war.
Advocates say it is crucial that teachers continue to teach even as bombs fall, because good education offers the best way forward for both the individual and society.
Frigenti highlighted some of the long-term consequences of a student not receiving an education, such as a cycle of poverty and ending up in low-paying jobs.
For girls, the result can be a ‘fate of early marriage’, potentially bringing early pregnancy and health problems.
“You can only imagine what the impact of all these uneducated, you know, children growing up and becoming young adults will have on the economy of their country and globally, because these people, what do they do? They will try to look for better opportunities somewhere else,” Frigenti said.
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