Protecting Education from Attack - New Report and State of the Art Review

Two new UNESCO publications that draw together current research and document promising practice on the issue of responding to and preventing political and military attacks on education staff, students, teachers, union government officials and education facilities were released this month.

Education Under Attack 2010 documents the trends of attacks since 2007 and highlights a tragic rise in violent attacks over the past few years:

• The number of attacks on schools, students and staff nearly tripled in Afghanistan from 2007 to 2008, up from 242 to 670;
• In Iraq, 71 academics, two education officials and 37 students were killed in assassinations and targeted bombings between 2007 and 2009.
• In Colombia, 90 teachers were murdered from 2006 to 2008.
• In Pakistan, 356 schools were destroyed or damaged in one small region at the centre of the battle between the army and the Taliban;
• In India, nearly 300 schools were reportedly blown up by Maoist rebels between 2006 and 2009;
• In Georgia, 127 education institutions were destroyed or damaged in the conflict that took place in August 2008;
• In Gaza, more than 300 kindergarten, school and university buildings were damaged, some of them severely, in the three weeks of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead spanning 2008-9.

The global report defines the scope of the issue, discusses challenges of data collection and analyses the motives behind the attacks. The report also documents some of the known short- and long-term impacts of attacks on affected communities and education systems as well as some of the prevention and protection measures that have been undertaken. Finally, the report examines the response to these attacks in terms of national and international monitoring and reporting, including combating legal impunity, and makes a series of recommendations for future action.

The accompanying publication - Protecting Education from Attack: A State-of-the-Art Review - presents key discussion points and 13 papers written by researchers and practitioners active in the field of protecting education from attack. The review also includes findings from an expert seminar held in Paris last year. The volume takes critical stock of knowledge on prevention and response with respect to both international law and interventions on the ground. Essays go into depth on particular elements of this phenomenon, including attacks on higher education communities and attacks against humanitarian aid workers. Several papers also deal with the debates surrounding the issue of applying and potentially strengthening the international legal provisions relating to these criminal acts.

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