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Education is expected to contributesignicantly to rebuildingshaered societies. Policymakersassert that it can heal thepsychosocial wounds of war, solve

youth unemployment, deliverdecentralisation and democracy,build peace and promote economicand social development. Evaluationsroutinely fail to test whetherthese expectations are realistic.

The recognition that educationsystems are almost always complicitin conict, that they rarely completelycease to function and that they rapidlyresume operations with or withoutoutside support as violence subsidesis an important factor responsiblefor the growing interest in earlyeducation response. Humanitarianagencies are starting to recognisethat schools can reproduce the skills,values, aitudes and social relationsof dominant groups. They arelearning that schools and educationsystems are oen surprisinglyresilient and that disruption causedby conict oers opportunities as wellas challenges for social reconstruction.

When conict ceases, education

systems must be rebuilt in a contextwhere political authority and civiladministration are weakened,compromised or inexperienced.Civil society is in disarray andmore accustomed to opposingthan working with governments and nancial sources areconstrained and unpredictable.

Yet each of these constraints alsocontains possibilities. New politicalauthorities are more likely toseek education reform to distancethemselves from the previous regime,particularly where internationalaid provides additional incentives.Weakened bureaucracies are lessable to resist reform. Civil society

oen focuses on education as anactivity around which it can coalesce.Publicity around the end of conictand geing kids into classroomsoen aracts an injection of external

resources to kick-start reform.

Problems common to many

post-conict states are:

inability of recovering states tofund either capital or recurrentexpenditure: few states have accessto domestic revenue sucientto keep systems running

chronic shortages of qualiedteachers many have beenkilled or ed, and many of thosewho remain or return are oensnapped by up internationalagencies and NGOs

oversupply of under-qualiedor unqualied teachers

the sheer numbers of war-aectedyouth, demobilised soldiers andyoung people who have notcompleted basic education

poor record keeping, corruptionand lack of transparency ineducation governance: salariesare oen paid to ghost teachers

the relief bubble in internationalnancial support oen subsidesbefore a more predictable owof reconstruction resources canbe mobilised: relief agenciesoen scale back operationsbefore development-focusedagencies can be mobilised

skills training for youth is seriouslyunder-resourced: even whenavailable, vocational trainingprogrammes oen fail to prepare

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people for locally availableemployment opportunities

coordination challenges: aseducation involves an interfaceof humanitarian action anddevelopment in complex waysthere is oen a plethora ofcoordination mechanisms

failure to develop successfulinitiatives to build the skills ofyoung people and prevent theirrecruitment into military orcriminal activity: youth are seenas a threat to stability and fewprogrammes value young peopleas an important resource fordevelopment and reconstruction.

Donors oer only minimal support tosecondary education. This is despiteevidence that secondary and higher

education suer a more rapid declineduring conict and a more gradualrecovery from it. The most commonexperience of youth in post-conictreconstruction is one of exclusion.The slow progress in re-establishingsecondary and tertiary educationalopportunities, and the marginalstatus of most adult educationprogrammes and accelerated learningopportunities, add to this frustrationat a time when involvement inconict oen leaves youth with

a new sense of empowerment.

Neglect of refugees and IDPs

Another area of serious neglect isfailure to reintegrate refugees andIDPs into mainstream nationaleducation systems. While thereis general consensus that theideal curriculum in refugeeeducation is, in principle at least,that of the country of origin, thisis frequently not possible. Thiscreates problems of accreditationof learning, especially for returneeswho may be forced to re-enter thesystem at lower levels becauseprior learning is not recognised.

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Post-confict education:time for a reality check?

by Peter Buckland

FMR EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT

While education does not cause wars, nor end them, every

education system has the potential either to exacerbate or

to mitigate the conditions that contribute to violent confict.

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The neglect of secondary and post-secondary education typical of post-conict environments is even morepronounced in refugee education.Only 6% of all refugee students arein secondary education. In bothrefugee and IDP camps this createssignicant problems in terms ofmotivation for primary students,supply of teachers for the primaryschools and cohorts of youth whoare frustrated, unemployed andunemployable. Host governments areoen unsupportive and concernedabout the politicisation of secondaryand post-secondary institutions, aswell as the possibility of competitionfor jobs from educated refugees.

Returnees oen include the besteducated students and the mostqualied teachers. Teachers inrefugee camps oen develop skillsthat equip them to make a usefulcontribution to education on theirreturn. They are more likely to beengaged in curriculum developmentwork, more likely to haveexperience of multi-grade teachingand oen have more exposureto international expertise andalternative pedagogical approaches.Yet upon return to their homecountries, they oen have dicultiesnding employment because oflack of recognition of qualicationsand teaching experience.

The way ahead

Provision of education to refugeesand displaced persons (even duringconict) is a reconstruction anddevelopment issue that warrantsthe aention of agencies commied

to reconstruction and developmentand should not be viewed simplyas a humanitarian activity. Donorsand relief and development agenciesare improving coordination andsharing knowledge as a resultof such initiatives as the Inter-Agency Network for Educationin Emergencies (INEE).1 There isemerging consensus over the need for:

early focus on geing schoolsfunctioning so that the return ofyoung people to classes can beseen as a peace dividend andshore up support for peace

bold symbolic actions (suchas purging inammatorytextbooks) to signal that, while

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much about the systemremains unchanged,reform has started

decentralisation reformsto allow parents spaceto be involved inschool governance

acknowledgement thatcreating an equitablesystem able to deliverquality education is anincremental and ongoingprocess that takesdecades and will requirenational consensus around awider development vision ofwhere a country is heading

capacity building, encouragementof participation and coordinationbetween communities, teachersand their organisations, localauthorities and other stakeholders

recognition that returningrefugees, and especially youth,can contribute to the processof education reconstruction

ensuring that external supportfor education builds on anddoes not compete with theeorts of local communities andauthorities already active insupporting education.

The nature of post-conictreconstruction makes inter-sectoralcollaboration particularly urgent.Education systems need to collaborateacross sectors on HIV/AIDSprogrammes, health education, safetyand security in schools, landminesawareness and psychosocial support.

Education reconstruction must bealigned with social and economicdevelopment planning and publicsector and labour markets reform.

Education does not cause wars, nordoes it end them. It does, however,frequently contribute to the factorsthat underlie conict and also hasthe potential to play a signicantrole both directly and indirectly inbuilding peace, restoring countriesto a positive development pathand reversing the damage wroughtby civil war. Early investmentin education is thus an essentialprerequisite for sustainable peace.

The World Bank has long recognisedthe importance of early engagement

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in post-conict reconstructionof education systems as a keyelement in conict prevention and

reconstruction. Since the mid 1990s ithas adapted its operating proceduresto facilitate early engagement.Support for education reconstructionhas been a signicant element of itsemergency response in many post-conict contexts, including SierraLeone, Angola, Mozambique, Kosovo,Timor-Leste, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Education has a role to play inpreventing conict and promotingreconstruction but only as part ofwider social, economic and politicaleorts. Without these linkages andsustained and strategic investment,education reconstruction will failto deliver on the oen unrealisticexpectations placed on it. Therelationship of education to peace-building and social reconstructionhas recently come under greaterscrutiny with international aentionfocused on fragile states. Thiscreates an opportunity for moresystematic and rigorous case studiesand meta-analyses to identify

which interventions have thegreatest impact in which contexts.

Peter Buckland is the World BanksSenior Education Specialist. Email:Pbuckland@worldbank.org. Heis the author ofReshaping thefuture: education and post-conictreconstruction, World Bank, 2005which oers an overview of the mainndings of a study of educationand post-conict reconstruction,drawing on a review of literature, adatabase of indicators for 52 conict-aected countries and a review of12 country studies. Available onlineat: www1.worldbank.org/education/pdf/Reshaping_the_Future.pdf

1. See pages 29-30 and www.ineesite.org

FMR EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT

aining session

by Adriano

Matsinhe on

HIV/AIDS for

peer educators

the UNICEF-

pported NGO

Kindlimuka,

Maputo,

Mozambique.

UNICEF/HQ01-0150/GiacomoPirozzi

mailto:Pbuckland@worldbank.orghttp://www1.worldbank.org/education/pdf/Reshaping_the_Future.pdfhttp://www1.worldbank.org/education/pdf/Reshaping_the_Future.pdfhttp://www1.worldbank.org/education/pdf/Reshaping_the_Future.pdfhttp://www.ineesite.org/http://www.ineesite.org/http://www.ineesite.org/http://www1.worldbank.org/education/pdf/Reshaping_the_Future.pdfhttp://www1.worldbank.org/education/pdf/Reshaping_the_Future.pdfmailto:Pbuckland@worldbank.org