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PART
IV: CHALLENGES OF THE NEW CENTURY: LESSONS LEARNED FOR THE
FUTURE
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On the basis of this brief review of the current situation of
emergency education, some conclusions may be drawn regarding
progress towards Education for All. What have been the failures
and shortcomings, and what have been the strong points on which
we can lean in the future? |
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| 1. THE
RIGHT TO EDUCATION AND PROTECTION OF CHILDREN IN CRISIS SITUATIONS
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When it comes to emergency education, the findings are clear:
much has been achieved but much remains to be done. Millions
of children remain on the margins of the education system. In
some situations, such marginalisation was present before the
emergency: education systems had not reached the poorest sectors
of society, and rural areas were under-served. In other situations,
including parts of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union,
conflict has disrupted the ongoing education of a generation
of young people. Education systems have been destabilised or
even completely destroyed by the disastrous effects of war (as
in Somalia or Sierra Leone) or natural disasters (the case of
Central America affected by Hurricane Mitch). The goals of Jomtien
are thus far from being reached. |
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The world wide Education for All movement will only have real
meaning if it confronts this challenge, and finds ways of ensuring
the right to education for the millions of children who are
marginalised by violence, natural disasters, social exclusion
or extreme poverty. This right must be ensured even under extreme
conditions. The phenomenon of large scale exclusion is a direct
violation of children's right to education, as defined by the
national legislation of countries of origin or host countries
as well as by international agreements. |
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This injustice is compounded by the problems of protecting children
in situations of crisis. Too often, children are not adequately
protected from instability and violence. They are the first
victims, and instead of being at school, they are often used
in armed conflicts. More than 300,000 children are actively
involved in armed conflicts throughout the world.(28) In armed
conflicts, schools often become shelters for the armed forces
or the target of deliberate destruction. Their status as places
of knowledge, dialogue and community mobilisation, and the principle
of their inviolability even in the middle of chaos, are no longer
respected. |
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Numerous children are acutely affected by emergency situations
related to social disasters. This is the case, for example,
of the thousands of child soldiers, the large numbers of children
who are orphaned by the spread of AIDS, children who become
drug addicts due to large scale violence, marginalised children
in urban areas or those who have to leave school as a result
of extreme poverty. The poorest countries are those recently
affected by war. The beginning of the new century begins with
this alarming scenario. Emergency education will have to develop
in stature in order to tackle these new challenges. |
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| 2. GENDER
INEQUALITY |
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Many traditional education systems are still characterised by
significant gender gaps. This problem can be even more serious
in emergency situations. Girls and women may have been subject
to rape and subsequent social stigma and anguish. They have
often become heads of household, having to cope in a situation
where previous social and economic systems have broken down,
or living in refugee or internal displacement situations. Where
a family has been affected by AIDS, girls are the first to have
to leave school, to help with household chores, nurse the sick
or work to support the family. |
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The education of girls and women remains a challenge, even where
international agencies are able to provide support. Sometimes,
discrimination against girls and women becomes almost an official
policy, despite their human rights under international agreements
(the case of Afghanistan at this time). Often the situation
of girls and women is more limited by social constraints, after
families are displaced as refugees or IDPs. The insecurity of
living among strangers may lead to pressures for girls and women
to stay close to home. |
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There is wide variation between the levels of resourcing and
the extent of management efforts devoted to promoting the education
and training of girls and women, in different emergency education
programmes. Agencies can insist on the equal participation of
girls and women in the educational process. Where support for
schooling has been made conditional on at least half the children
being girls, there has been a positive impact on girls' education.
It is vital to ensure in future that there is full participation
of girls and women in school management committees, parent-teacher
associations, the teaching force and student enrolments. |
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| 3. EMERGENCY
EDUCATION AND RECONSTRUCTION PROGRAMMES |
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Education is at the centre of the interactive triangle "peace
- development - democracy". It is both the starting point and
the goal of this interaction. Apart from its apparent humanitarian
character, emergency education represents a formidable springboard
for reconstruction and sustainable development in situations
of crisis. |
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Emergency programmes, by definition, respond to immediate needs,
whether at the humanitarian, pedagogical, organisational or
infrastructure level. All projects analysed here emphasise these
pressing needs. However, any humanitarian interventions which
focus only on immediate needs will remain insufficient and incomplete
unless they look forward to the reconstruction of education
systems and, through this, the perspective of general rehabilitation.
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As a basic social service, education is a model type of programme
for the transition between emergency humanitarian action, the
phase of rehabilitation and general, national reconstruction.
This long-term vision is vital for social stability and the
return to normalcy, since it should guarantee the logical continuity
of assistance programmes from the beginning of a crisis to the
phase of actual reconstruction. Any interruption of education
programmes constitutes a serious violation of children's rights.
This new vision of a strong link between humanitarian intervention
and reconstruction is a clear result of the experience gained
in recent years. Governments as well as international bodies
need to integrate this vision in their humanitarian and development
programmes. |
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We should avoid the situation whereby several major donors take
the attitude that humanitarian assistance should include only
the necessities for staying physically alive until the next
day, week or year! When the 'humanitarian' crisis is over and
'development' begins, how will children's and adolescents' delayed
education be affected by this experience of an educational vacuum?
Or will they have joined militias in the hills by the time education
services are resumed? We should avoid the situation whereby
education assistance cannot be provided in countries such as
Somalia, Southern Sudan or the Democratic Republic of Congo
because they are 'not yet ready' or 'too disturbed' to receive
'development assistance'! (These are real examples of funding
problems from the recent past.) |
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Crisis situations have to be treated as an integral part of
development politics and planning. The countries in Central
America which were affected by Hurricane Mitch have shown for
the first time that this approach is feasible and realistic,
provided it is supported by political will and consultation.
In Kosovo, assistance was even more speedy and efficient. It
was also characterised by continuity, from the assistance to
refugees to their repatriation and the setting up of reconstruction
programmes. Not all populations affected by crisis have been
able to benefit from this continuity of assistance. |
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Strategic planning must include listening to the voices of parents
and students, identifying ways to build management capacity
at local, regional and national level, and dialogue with organisations
likely to intervene significantly at any stage in the future.
NGOs working with pre-school children, for example, need to
be part of the dialogue alongside multilateral agencies and
bilateral that may be involved in assistance to educational
reconstruction and development. The decision taken by an influential
NGO on Day One regarding the modalities and resourcing of pre-school
education, for example, can reverberate down the years ; likewise,
decisions regarding possible incentives for in-service teacher
training have lasting impact, and almost every other decision
about education does too. |
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The current 'Jubilee 2000' proposals for debt cancellation and
for a focus on social sector expenditures should be seen as
an opportunity to move forward in the field of education in
emergency and reconstruction. Countries recovering from crisis
or implementing 'structural adjustment' programmes have been
faced with financial constraints that have contributed to, or
delayed recovery from, conflicts, with the education sector
being badly affected. The concept of investment in education
as 'human capital' needs to be re-interpreted in the light of
the crises of the 1990s as investment in 'skills for peace,
democracy and strengthening of civil society' and then brought
to the attention of global decision-makers at the highest levels.
We should ensure that education in emergencies and in countries
seeking to recover from chronic conflict and insecurity is seen
as an investment in global security and prosperity. |
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| 4.
EMERGENCY EDUCATION: STANDARDS AND INNOVATIONS |
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One sometimes forgets that an education system that reinforces
social fissures can represent a dangerous source of conflict,
just as education can be a powerful factor for peace, stability
and development if the system is well designed. The experience
of the last ten years shows many examples for either case. In
situations of conflict, emergency education has to be geared
towards laying the foundations for progress and modernisation.
The sooner this approach is implemented the greater are its
chances of success. |
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As dramatic as they may be, situations of emergency can also
provide a chance for a new beginning, by allowing large-scale
innovations in traditional systems marked by inertia and narrow-mindedness.
Paradoxically, a crisis can provide the unhoped-for opportunity
to introduce change and new pedagogical methods in education.
An analysis of the current situation shows that existing emergency
programmes deal mostly with basic education in the classical
sense of traditional schooling. There are small and scattered
innovative projects reflecting, for example, concerns about
functional literacy, community integration, education for youth,
psycho-social rehabilitation or socio-economic integration.
At the same time, the situation calls for large-scale mobilisation
of expertise and resources to build a better future, through
education programmes which include new contents such as education
for human rights, education for peace, democracy and tolerance
or environmental education as well as innovative pedagogical
methods, emphasising participation and conflict resolution techniques.
Most organisations in the field of emergency education programmes
are now speaking about the importance of these changes, but
they need to come together to assert that emergency education
must systematically incorporate these changes in the coming
years. (29) |
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| 5. COMMUNITY
PARTICIPATION AND CAPACITY BUILDING |
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Lack of consultation and communication between emergency programmes
in the field and beneficiary populations often causes setbacks
or even blockages. Humanitarian assistance programmes must not
be seen or experienced by local populations as encouraging passivity
or restraining local initiatives, nor should they upset and
prevent development. |
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The preparation of development initiatives, especially when
it comes to redesigning and rebuilding destroyed education systems,
needs to be based on the active participation of the concerned
population groups. Few completed or on-going emergency programmes
sufficiently emphasise active community participation. This
has a negative impact on the local ownership of programmes and
their success. |
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Generally speaking, the partial or total collapse of government
structures and the institutional chaos which follow a conflict
or serious natural disaster seriously reduce or even wipe out
the operational capacity of a country and pose significant problems
for foreign aid programmes. Under these conditions, people often
resort to self help despite their lack of means, whether in
the case of refugee camps, of groupings of displaced persons
or make-shift camps. The sense of initiative, solidarity, self-help
and the search for innovative solutions often come to the surface
when communities are thrown into the face of adversity. In order
to be effective, external assistance needs to build upon this
large-scale motivation; otherwise, any irregularities in the
provision of assistance will have dramatic consequences. Community
participation throughout an educational project is a precondition
for its success. |
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One can never emphasise enough the role which aid agencies have
to play in emergency situations to build local operational and
human capacities at all levels in order to ensure the sustainability
of education programmes and their eventual integration in post-conflict
reconstruction plans. This capacity-building at local level
brings a pay-off beyond the education sector, in the foundations
it lays for a better functioning civil society and democratic
governance. |
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The 1990s have shown that capacity-building at national and
local level is critical to designing appropriate and sustainable
interventions. Many assistance agencies now use the approach
of initiating activities in the field through supporting design
workshops of key actors, often under local leadership. Agencies
working in the field of emergency and post-conflict education
should commit themselves to coordinating their activities through
joint support for capacity-building programme design and should
avoid the confusion and waste of disparate and uncoordinated
initiatives. |
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| 6. STRATEGIES
FOR CO-OPERATION IN EMERGENCY EDUCATION |
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many and varied types of assistance provided to countries in
crisis often pose significant problems with regard to planning,
management, organisation, logistics and distribution, not to
mention the possible risk of programmes not being adapted to
immediate local needs. Local authorities and external organisations
alike are often faced with a need for improvisation, a lack
of preparation and consultation, insufficient definition of
priorities and a lack of co-ordination between programmes. This
often results in wastage, overlapping, bureaucratic delays,
a slowing down of operations in the field and, sometimes, the
reduction of aid for the concerned target populations. |
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An analysis of the situation in the field shows that much
progress has been made over the last ten years regarding inter-sectoral
and inter-agency co-ordination. Many education projects are
jointly implemented by several organisations. Sometimes, several
donors coordinate their assistance to finance one project.
However, much remains to be done to further improve the efficiency
of emergency assistance, both in conceptual and operational
terms. This problem needs to be tackled by donors and humanitarian
and development organisations alike. Improvements in emergency
education assistance require action on several fronts:
A better
co-ordination of aid programmes, from their preparation
to implementation and evaluation;
The
setting up of institutional and financial inter-agency arrangements
to ensure continuity in emergency education programmes,
from the immediate humanitarian response to the definition
of achievable post-conflict reconstruction programmes based
on well defined priorities;
Stronger
support to capacity-building for the planning, management
and implementation of education reconstruction programmes,
at national and local levels;
Stronger
research, monitoring, evaluation of emergency education
programmes, by those who implement them, those who fund
them, those with interests in applied and policy-oriented
research in education or the social sector in specific regions;
A new
architecture of inter-agency technical co-operation in the
field of education in emergencies, drawing on electronic
communications to link field, headquarters and technical
specialists on an inter-agency basis.
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| 7. EDUCATION
AND CONFLICT PREVENTION |
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The causes of conflicts and of natural disasters are diverse.
Every country affected by an emergency is faced with a particular
situation, requiring a specific response. Nevertheless, some
factors are common to several or most emergencies, and the experience
of one country can be useful to another. By definition, humanitarian
assistance arrives after a disaster has already occurred, with
the aim of limiting its effects on the local population and
their suffering. This assistance is necessarily limited in time
and scope and cannot always meet the overall need. |
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Conflict prevention remains the most suitable solution in areas
at risk. This requires the setting up of complex, participatory
structures to which everyone can contribute (government, civil
society, the international community, etc.), whether at national
or regional level, leading to the non-violent solutions of social
and economic problems. International assistance may be part
of the solution. However, the cost of peace is often less than
that of war. Education remains one of the best investments in
security, stability and prosperity, provided it is treated as
a real priority. |
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