Building sustainable peace and stability through education: UNICEF evidence building on education and peacebuilding through Learning for Peace programme

Educational Inequality and Violent Conflict: Is There a Link? As the education community embarks on a new education agenda for sustainable futures, the issues of equity and the importance of ensuring broad-based access to... [ view full abstract ]

Educational Inequality and Violent Conflict: Is There a Link?

As the education community embarks on a new education agenda for sustainable futures, the issues of equity and the importance of ensuring broad-based access to quality education come to the forefront of the discussion. A new study released by UNICEF demonstrates that educational inequality is not only a threat to economic development and livelihoods, but it also increases the risks of instability and violent conflict. Using a newly created dataset of educational inequality that spans over 50 years and close to 100 countries, the study estimated that countries where schooling is highly unequally distributed among ethnic or religious groups have double the odds of violent conflict compared to the global average. These results held true even after accounting for the countries’ differences in economic development, political systems, populations and income inequalities. These findings come against the backdrop of the overall expansion of educational opportunity at the turn of the Millennium. Globally, both the average years of schooling completed and the disparities in educational attainment between groups have declined substantially since the mid-20thcentury. And yet, inequality in schooling has grown in importance as a potential contributor to violent conflict, making an even stronger case for addressing equity imbalances before they contribute to civil strife. The study provides a contribution to the growing body of evidence on inequality as a threat to global development, which has implications for the ways in which donors and governments allocate their funding in the post-2015 world.

Education and Transitional Justice: Responding to past human rights violations for building sustainable peace In the aftermath of conflict, education can play an important role in peacebuilding. The reconstruction of a... [ view full abstract ]

Education and Transitional Justice: Responding to past human rights violations for building sustainable peace

In the aftermath of conflict, education can play an important role in peacebuilding. The reconstruction of a country’s education system can help prevent recurrence of violence and boost the legitimacy of democratic institutions. The sustainability of these efforts depends not only on rebuilding schools, bringing children back into the system, and promoting values of peace through curricula. It also depends on the sensitivity of these efforts to the legacies of past abuses. The research conducted by ICTJ and UNICEF examined synergies between TJ and education in responding to a repressive and conflictive past. It looked at how a TJ framework can play a role in identifying educational deficits related to past conflict and informing the reconstruction of the education sector, as well as how education can facilitate and sustain the work of TJ measures. The research explored how to incorporate lessons from TJ processes into the educational curriculum; how to increase access to education through measures of redress; and how to shape school governance, pedagogy, didactic tools, and teacher training with the aim of promoting a culture of human rights and democracy. The research also considered how TJ practitioners, educators, civil society, communities, and policymakers can strategically work together to address the past through education, focusing on entry points and innovative methodologies for leveraging long-term sustainable change. This paper presents the main findings of the research and highlights key implications for policy, planning and action

Methodological framework: the role of education for youth agency in relation to building sustainable peaceful futures in Pakistan/Myanmar The world faces a series of concerns that provide a backdrop to the emerging post-2015... [ view full abstract ]

Methodological framework: the role of education for youth agency in relation to building sustainable peaceful futures in Pakistan/Myanmar

The world faces a series of concerns that provide a backdrop to the emerging post-2015 ideals of more inclusiveness and peaceful societies for young and old, including, e.g. a growing youth population, rising social inequalities and (specifically youth) unemployment, increasing rates of violence and various expressions of conflict. In our research we aim to uncover the relevance and influence of educational processes in relation to the various dimensions of youth’s agency in processes of peacebuilding with social justice. This paper discusses the application of our methodological framework developed in the context of the Research Consortium on Education and Peacebuilding, a partnership between the Universities of Amsterdam, Sussex, Ulster and UNICEF. The paper outlines the consortium’s ‘sustainable peacebuilding with social justice’ theoretical framework, which covers the 4R’s of redistribution, recognition, representation and reconciliation, and explains how this relates to the methodological framework that focuses on analysing one of the thematic areas under study: the role of education for youth (political, social and economic) agency in conflict-affected settings. We discuss how this methodological framework has guided the fieldwork in two of the case studies, Pakistan and Myanmar. We focus on two aspects: a) the data collection process with, for and about ‘young people’s formal and non-formal education experiences’ living in these conflict-affected areas, and b) the challenges, ethical considerations and lessons learned when researching the role of education in establishing a sustainable peaceful future.

More than 230 million children live in fragile and conflict-affected settings. Crises in Syria, Mali, Nigeria, South Sudan and other countries have resulted in the destabilization of social systems unprecedented in complexity,... [ view full abstract ]

More than 230 million children live in fragile and conflict-affected settings. Crises in Syria, Mali, Nigeria, South Sudan and other countries have resulted in the destabilization of social systems unprecedented in complexity, scale and scope. Many countries emerging from violence remain at risk of relapsing into conflict, threatening progress towards sustainable development and jeopardizing prospects for the future generations. The equitable delivery of social services, like education, can mitigate such risks of return to violence, and help address the root causes and consequences of violent conflict. As the world envisions a stronger focus on peaceful and inclusive societies in the post-2015 sustainable development agenda, the stakes are high for governments to invest in addressing underlying causes to break cycles of violence and build sustainable peace.

Acknowledging that business as usual will not address the needs of communities in crisis, UNICEF has sharpened its programmatic approach in conflict-affected and fragile contexts and invested in building evidence on the role of social services in peacebuilding through multi-sector research. Learning for Peace programme tackles root causes of conflict through education in 14 countries. Accompanying research seeks to uncover dimensions of the complex relationship between education and peacebuilding including issues of equity, sector governance and planning, values and curricula, transitional justice, the role of teachers, and relevancy of education for sustainable employment and civic engagement of youth. This symposium presents findings of this research closely linked to the programmatic and policy work of UNICEF and national partners.