March 2003

Abstract

Wars deprive millions of children of an education, yet education in emergencies has not traditionally occupied a prominent place in humanitarian thinking. No one dies from not going to school, and other life threatening needs – for food, water, shelter or healthcare – can at first glance seem more pressing. Amid conflict and crisis, education programming has been viewed as a luxury, and a task best left to the development community.

This paper does not offer definitive answers to these questions. Education in emergencies is a young area; the evidence of its impact is often anecdotal, and although its status as a humanitarian concern has gained legitimacy in recent years, it has yet to be accepted across the humanitarian community. Much more needs to be done to enhance our understanding of the links between education and child protection in emergency situations.

The key conclusions of this paper are:

Save the Children recommends that:

"Child protection should be an integral part of all emergency education activities, and should be a fundamental criterion in the approval of a programme by NGO staff, host governments and donors. Emergency education is a young and developing field, and there is no consensus among implementing agencies as to what constitutes ‘best practice'. Thus far, there has been little concerted effort to implement education projects which consciously seek to further the aims of child protection. There is a need for in-depth research into education projects that aim to enhance the protection of children. While this paper provides a theoretical overview and a number of examples that illustrate the relationship between sectors, it cannot draw firm conclusions on its own."

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