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Using schools to overcome sectarian conflict

Sectarian conflict makes its way into the classroom. Segregated schools are both a symptom and a cause in societies split by racial, class and religious divisions. Recent research shows, however, that re-thinking education policy could make learning institutions more widely accessible and diverse, and make schools a positive force for change in divided societies.

A report from the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) examines the link between education and conflict and analyses the practice of key international agencies. The authors argue that that there has been a tendency to view education as a force for good without acknowledging that it can also create the conditions for strife.

Of the estimated 113 million children not in school worldwide, 82 per cent are living in crisis and post-crisis countries. At Dakar in 2000, international educators belatedly recognised the issue of conflict as an obstacle to the achievement of the goal of ‘Education for All’ and noted how education can play a key role in preventing conflict and building peace.

Segregated schools are common in many countries divided by conflict. This segregation limits the opportunities for young people from different groups to interact and reinforces separate identities. Some examples offered by the report include:

In Nepal, poor state education provision fuelled the rapidly increasing private sector, a symbol of privilege which helped to stimulate the Maoist insurgency and made education a battleground as rebels have attacked both state and private schools.
In Burundi, where conflict has destroyed a quarter of primary schools, Tutsi leaders made education the exclusive preserve of their particular social group by manipulating the allocation of resources and promoting the use of the French language: some external agencies were inadvertently involved in supporting this elitist approach.
Tamil teachers in Sri Lanka are concerned about the cultural bias in Sinhalese textbooks translated into Tamil.
Post-conflict decentralisation risks reigniting hatreds: in Bosnia it has allowed nationalist politics to influence curricula, textbooks, appointments and access.
Religious codes often assign a subordinate role to women, raising concerns about unequal access to faith-based education for girls.

The ‘emergency’ provision of exercise books and pencils might be valid at a critical stage but may also distract from the longer-term provisioning of education systems able to meet the needs of diverse groups on an equitable basis. The report argues that the nature of modern conflict requires a system-wide education analysis to be more deeply integrated into all forms of conflict response.

Among the many recommendations are calls for:

priority to be given to making schools a central part of rebuilding projects
greater international co-ordination and flexibility in aid budgets: education should no longer be excluded from emergency budgets
a move towards history being taught as a discipline involving the interpretation of evidence rather than as a narrative of the ‘national story’
conflict-sensitive recruitment and deployment policies to ensure the employment of male and female teachers from different ethnic and language groups
efforts to make schools safe and welcoming for adolescent girls and disabled children
education programmes for the demobilisation and reintegration of child soldiers.

Source(s):
‘Education, conflict and international development’, Department for International Development (DFID), by Alan Smith and Tony Vaux, January 2003 Full document.

Funded by: DFID (Joint project between Education and Conflict and Humanitarian Aid Department (CHAD, Ref: CNTR 01 3022)

id21 Research Highlight: 5 January 2004

Further Information:
Alan Smith
School of Education
University of Ulster
Coleraine Campus
Cromore Road
Coleraine
Co. Londonderry
BT52 1SA
Northern Ireland

Tel: +44 (0)28 70323593
Fax: +44 (0)28 9036 6806
Contact the contributor: a.smith@ulster.ac.uk

School of Education, University of Ulster

Tony Vaux
Humanitarian Initiatives
Timbertop, Churchfields,
Stonefields,
Oxon,
OX 29 8PP

Tel: +44 (0) 79 90521315
Contact the contributor: vauxt@aol.com

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