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Education Under Attack
2014 – Report
At a
school in Lahore, Pakistan, people hold candles and pictures of Malala Yousafzai, a
student shot by the Pakistani Taliban for speaking out against the militants’
destruction of schools and for promoting education for girls, 12 October 2012.
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It
was 9 October 2012. The school bus, a converted truck, had travelled only a few
hundred yards from Khushal school in Mingora, north-west Pakistan, when a
masked man stepped in front of the vehicle. An accomplice armed with a pistol
climbed onto the tailgate at the rear, leaned over and asked which of the 20
schoolgirls huddled inside was Malala. When the driver stepped on the
accelerator, the gunman opened fire, shooting Malala in the head.
Malala Yousafzai, 15, had become well known in the area – and a Pakistani
Taliban target – after daring to speak out against the militants’ edict banning
girls from attending classes and their bombing of schools. Critically wounded
by a bullet that tore through her head and shoulder and lodged near her spine,
she was rushed by helicopter to a military hospital in Peshawar, along with two
wounded school friends. From there, she was taken to England, where she has
made a remarkable recovery and now lives.
Hailed
by international media and feted by human rights groups for her courage, Malala
is today famous around the world. But she is just one of the many thousands of
students, teachers, academics and other education personnel in dozens of
countries targeted with violence.
This global study charts the scale and nature of attacks on education;
highlights their impact on education – including on students, teachers and
facilities; and documents the ways that governments, local communities,
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and UN agencies try to reduce the impact
of such violence and prevent future attacks.
In doing so, it provides the most extensive documentation of attacks on
education to date.
Following earlier studies that UNESCO published in 2007 and 2010, it
not only examines attacks on schools, as previous research has done, but also
considers military use of education facilities and more closely examines
attacks on higher education.
The study’s four main aims are to: better inform international and national
efforts to prevent schools, universities, students, teachers, academics and
other education staff from being attacked; encourage the investigation,
prosecution and punishment of the perpetrators of attacks; share knowledge
about effective responses; and help those who have been attacked to recover and
rebuild their lives – as Malala is doing – by providing recommendations for
action that the international community, governments and armed non-state groups
should adopt and implement.
In July 2013, Malala addressed the UN General Assembly and stressed the
importance of protecting education. ‘The terrorists thought that they would
change my aims and stop my ambitions,’ she said, ‘but nothing changed in my
life, except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Let us pick up our
books and pens. They are our most powerful weapons.’
The main parts of Education
under Attack 2014 are:
- a summary providing an overview of the main points and
key recommendations. - a methodology section outlining the methods used in the
research and the principal challenges faced; - a global overview providing a more detailed picture of
the scale, nature, motives and impact of attacks on education and the
variety of responses that are being, or could be, made; - three thematic essays offering more depth about how
schools and universities can best be protected; - profiles of the 30 most seriously affected countries,
providing an insight into the context in which attacks take place, a
detailed record of reported attacks on education during 2009-2012 and an
outline of attacks during the first nine months of 2013; and - endnotes providing citations for every piece of
information used in the study.
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