Attacks on education are any intentional threat or use of force—carried out for political, military, ideological, sectarian, ethnic, religious, or criminal reasons—against students, educators, and education institutions.
Strengthening Monitoring and Reporting of Attacks on Education
Coats of students hang on the wall of a partially destroyed school in Kabul, where children attend as part of the "Back to School" campaign launched by the Afghan government with UNICEF's support to bring 1.7 million students back to school.
© 2006 UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
Timely and accurate monitoring and reporting on attacks on education is crucial for responding to attacks, for holding perpetrators accountable, and for seeking to prevent attacks from occurring in the first place. Yet reliable, first-hand information may be difficult to collect as areas most vulnerable to attacks may be the least accessible because of poor security and infrastructure.
Those with the greatest access to information or responsibility to monitor may lack skills, resources, or motivation to monitor, or may face serious security threats to their own safety or that of witnesses. Reporting systems may be weak or non-existent or not linked to effective responses. Monitoring and reporting of attacks on higher education is particularly lacking.
Governments, and relevant UN bodies, NGOs, and others all should monitor, report, and respond to attacks on education. The UN-led Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism on Children and Armed Conflict (MRM) (established by Security Council Resolution 1612 in 2005) has an explicit mandate to monitor attacks on schools, teachers, and students, as well as military use of schools. Based on this information, the UN Security Council can take strong action against parties that attack education.
GCPEA Advocacy
GCPEA promotes the strengthening of existing monitoring and reporting systems as well as the creation of new systems where needed. The coalition urges:
- States, local organizations, and relevant international agencies to rigorously monitor attacks against education and use that information to devise effective, coordinated responses, including preventive interventions, rapid response, and both legal and non-legal accountability measures for perpetrators.
- Country task forces of the UN-led Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism (MRM) on grave violations against children in situations of armed conflict to enhance the monitoring and reporting of attacks on schools, students, teachers and other persons related to the school (protected persons); threats of attacks against protected persons; and actions by parties to the conflict which impede children's access to education, including the military use of schools, as requested by the Security Council in Resolution 1998 of July 2011
- UN human rights monitoring mechanisms, including the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights; the Human Rights Committee; the Committee on the Rights of the Child, and the Human Rights Council and its special procedures, including the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, to give greater attention to monitoring and reporting on attacks on education.
During 2010 and 2011 GCPEA, working closely with other groups, advocated for the Security Council to improve its monitoring of attacks on schools, teachers, and students in armed conflict. On July 12, 2011, the Security Council adopted resolution 1998, asking the UN Secretary-General to report to it about parties to armed conflict that attack schools and hospitals or threaten and attack their personnel. It also requested UN monitoring of the military use of schools and hospitals. Parties that attack these institutions will be required to negotiate with the UN to create time-bound action plans to stop these abuses.
GCPEA Briefing Note June 24, 2011: Expanding the Monitoring & Reporting Mechanism (MRM)
Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack:
UN Security Council: Protect Schools, Hospitals in War Zones Armed Groups Should Comply with New Global Initiative
The Problem
Attacks on education violate the right to education and other internationally protected human rights applicable at all times.
Attacks on students, educators, and education institutions can have a devastating impact on access to education and education systems and on a society’s overall development in the long-term.