Right to education continues to be illusory for many
Education is a fundamental human right, and yet hundreds of millions of children worldwide are missing school because they live in an emergency situation that sometimes lasts for years on end. The international community must do its utmost to support individual countries in providing these children with quality education, one of the most effective measures to eradicate poverty.
Author: Luca Beti
I am often reminded of the stories of Kinda and Bayan, two Syrian girls looking into the camera and talking about their lives amidst the daily bombings. «The streets in Syria are dangerous, there's barbed wire and shrapnel everywhere. School means a lot to me. I love learning and playing with my friends,» says Kinda. Bayan recalls, «First I lost my father and then three years of schooling.» The civil war has already lasted 11 years and has destroyed their dreams of becoming a teacher and doctor. Like them, another 2.4 million children in Syria are out of school.
About 5,000km away in northern Burkina Faso, Rihanata recounts how her family hastily fled after an attack by an armed group. «I was outside playing with my friends. When I got back home I saw my mother and father packing a few things in bags,» she remembers.
Rihanata and her parents fled to a refugee camp in Kaya 100km away. Thousands of schools in Burkina Faso were closed over the past years, making children vulnerable to recruitment by armed groups, sexual violence, child marriage, child labour and other forms of exploitation.
Schools are more than just spaces for learning
Kinda, Bayan and Rihanata: three different stories, three similar fates. The girls live in crisis settings in which the right to education is often disregarded. Schools do not just teach the three Rs, they also offer protection, a safe environment, warm meals, psychosocial support and primary healthcare. «For the children, returning to the classroom also means returning to a semblance of normality,» says Fadi Baidoun, a humanitarian aid expert in the occupied Palestinian territories. «Education is crucial for developing the capability to take decisions later in life and demand human rights.»
During a crisis or a conflict, going to school provides a modicum of routine, stability and structure in precarious circumstances. In the long term, good education is one of the most effective instruments to break out of poverty because it imparts the ability, among other things, to devise a financial plan, read a loan agreement or promote one's products on the internet.
A study conducted by the United Nations global fund, Education Cannot Wait (ECW), found that the number of school-aged children and adolescents living in a crisis setting rose from 75 million to 222 million between 2016 and 2022. One third of these children (78 million) are unable to attend school, while over half do not achieve minimum proficiency in mathematics and reading despite attending school. 84% of out-of-school children live in areas with protracted crises, largely in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria, Sudan, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia and Yemen.
Private investment in education
The private sector is an important source of funding for education in low and middle-income countries. A report by NORRAG, the network for international policies and cooperation in education and training, states that private foundations mobilised USD 2.1 billion for school education – mainly in Asia and Africa – between 2017 and 2020. Private donors along with development cooperation actors and public authorities promote quality education programmes, support innovation, share their knowledge, encourage new ideas and thus contribute to a revival that goes beyond the education system. Their efforts help to build resilience, a crucial element in overcoming crises. For instance, the private sector funds training centres that teach social and vocational skills. This enables new entrants to the job market to earn and support themselves, improve living conditions for themselves and their families and boost the economic development of the entire community. The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva has identified some problems related to private funding. Foundations, profit-oriented companies and impact investments tend to target children in urban areas that are easier to reach. This can exacerbate the education gap and social inequalities. Impact investments also tend to focus on immediate results even as far as the education sector is concerned.
Global learning crisis
Worldwide, close to 258 million children and adolescents do not go to school, which, in comparison, would translate into the entire population of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland never opening a book in their lives. Many children start attending primary school, but do not complete it or learn insufficiently because the quality of teaching is poor. The UN refers to this as a global learning crisis. In spite of the progress achieved in the past decades, almost half a billion children and adolescents do not possess the basic skills in reading and mathematics necessary later in life, even if they are in school. Added to this are a further 750 million illiterate adults.
With the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the international community has set itself the target of providing quality primary, technical and vocational education for all (SDG 4). A recent UNESCO report states that just one in six countries is likely to achieve this goal. It estimates that by the end of this decade 84 million children will be out of school.
COVID-19 has nullified much of the progress achieved
The situation has deteriorated further following the COVID-19 pandemic. At the height of the pandemic in April 2020, 1.6 billion children could not attend school. In Kenya, for example, classrooms were empty for nine months, which had extremely serious consequences especially for girls. «My father lost his job overnight,» says 17-year-old Hellen Achayo. «I didn't want to be a burden on anyone, so I entered into a relationship with an older man. He would buy me tea and food, which I would share with my family. Then I became pregnant and the man disappeared forever.» Today Hellen gets up at five in the morning – six days a week – to go to work. She works as a house help for a family in Nairobi, earning the equivalent of CHF 30 a month. Since she has a child to feed, attending school remains just a pipe dream for her now.
Millions of other young people suffer the same fate when their parents can no longer afford to pay school fees or when many public schools are permanently closed. In Uganda, one in ten students did not return to school after they had been closed for almost two years – the longest such closure worldwide. In Malawi, the school dropout rate increased by 48% between 2020 and 2021. In Kenya, 16% of girls and 8% of boys dropped out of school. The disparities in education between social classes were exacerbated by the pandemic. Save the Children notes that one in three children could not take part in online classes during the lockdown, and every second child did not have a computer or access to the internet.
Advantages of the Swiss education system from a development perspective
The education system in Switzerland is of high quality. All children can attend school regardless of their economic status, social background, language or residence status. The situation is quite different in many low and middle-income countries. The SDC plans to make the strengths of the Swiss education system more accessible to partner countries so as to promote inclusive, equitable and quality education. Five advantages have been highlighted in a report by the University of Teacher Education Zug: prioritisation and quality of compulsory education; decentralised organisation; multilingual and integrational approach; acquisition of basic skills; preparation for working life. «Our aim is not to export our expertise in education to different contexts but to serve as a source of inspiration for education authorities and other stakeholders in our partner countries,» emphasises Martina Ramming, education expert at the SDC. Consequently, projects such as improving multilingual education in Thailand or the integration of children and adolescents in schools in Niger are supported as part of development cooperation.
Right to education, but not for all
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that on average it takes 17 years for refugees to return to stable conditions. During this time, they are often denied the right to education enshrined in the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the 1951 Refugee Convention. This right was reaffirmed in the 2010 resolution of the UN General Assembly, which calls on countries to ensure education for all persons displaced by war or natural disasters.
Reading and maths can also be learned in refugee camps or in remote areas. Mobile schools, online learning and non-formal education in community settings are some excellent alternative forms of education. In the classroom, children can discover their talents, communicate their concerns and aspirations, and build resilience. In short, they learn to prepare themselves for life and to take destiny in their own hands.
«In times of crisis, schools offer children a safe space and future perspectives,» says SDC director Patricia Danzi. «Switzerland is committed to preventing the risk of lost generations through its support to education in emergencies.» The federal government has long been committed to the implementation of the right to education. The acquisition of basic skills lays the ground for future prospects and integration in society and the job market.
The right to education is among the four main objectives of Switzerland's International Cooperation Strategy 2021-24. The SDC promotes projects in Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Asia that aim to provide protection to children affected by crises, armed conflicts, forced displacement and irregular migration, and to enable them to access equitable, inclusive and quality education.
Switzerland's comprehensive and consistent commitment
Since 2009, Switzerland has been a board member of the Global Partnership for Education, which supports education ministers in developing countries to make sustainable improvements in their school education systems. In late 2019, Switzerland became a member of the executive committee of Education Cannot Wait, the fund for education in emergencies that champions the right to education for children affected by emergencies and protracted crises. Switzerland also contributed to the setting up of the Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies following an initiative at the 2019 Global Refugee Forum held in Geneva. This platform will facilitate a coherent overview and help relevant organisations in Geneva to coordinate their efforts in support of Education in Emergencies. Various international institutions, such as the ICRC, UNICEF, UNHCR and UNESCO have joined this initiative. The platform currently has 36 members.
Finding funding
Education systems suffer from a chronic paucity of funds. An estimated USD 75 billion are needed every year to ensure quality education for all by 2030. Although public spending on school systems has steadily increased in recent years, the pandemic-induced crisis has placed a huge burden on public finances. A study conducted by the World Bank and UNESCO found that about 65% of low and middle-income countries reduced their expenditure on education in 2020 after the pandemic broke out. Two years later, a UNICEF survey showed that the proportion of expenditure on school education rebounded to over 2019 levels in only 40 of 122 countries.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development envisages that countries should allocate at least 4% of GDP or at least 15% of total public expenditure to education. This target has not been achieved by several countries so far and it is unlikely to be achieved even in the future. Consequently, public and private contributions are currently critical to ensure that the education gap within and between countries does not widen further. Recent data, however, indicates that donors are committing fewer funds for education. The war in Ukraine has also once again pushed education into the background.
Education Cannot Wait
«Education Cannot Wait. Help us place education within reach of every child. Help us to keep 222 million dreams alive.» With these words, UN Secretary-General António Guterres appealed to the world's heads of state and government in June this year to make more funding available. The goal is to mobilise USD 1.5 billion by February 2023, when the High-Level Financing Conference co-hosted by Education Cannot Wait (ECW) and Switzerland will take place in Geneva.
Both organisers reiterated that we cannot wait for wars or the climate crisis to end before providing 222 million children with the opportunity to fulfil their dreams. Investing in their education means investing in peace, in combating climate change and in the development of their countries.
#222MillionDreams
Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies, launched the #222MillionDreams campaign to combat the education crisis and enable 222 million children to attend school. The campaign appeals to public donors, the private sector, foundations and individuals to urgently mobilise more resources for formal and informal education in crisis contexts. «The financial resources to ensure quality education for all exist,» emphasised Gordon Brown, the UN Special Envoy for Global Education. The #222MillionDreams campaign brings together donor countries and other partners in the Germany, Niger, Norway and South Sudan on 16-17 February 2023 in Geneva
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