Access to education in a safe and protective environment is the right of every child but conflict is one of the biggest and most complex barriers to ensure access to education. Children unwittingly become victims with terror, abductions and murder disrupting their daily existence. Schools are therefore vital in protecting children and supporting their emotional and social development, giving them comfort, security and opportunity. However, the situation in conflict zones with high levels of displacement, destroyed school facilities, lack of teachers, limited funds, instability and violence, make providing education even more difficult. Yet stories of resilience shown by students, teachers and communities in Nepal, show that education has helped to provide structure, a sense of stability and normalcy during the conflict.

18-year-old Muna is the eldest amongst her five siblings. She was an active member of the child club in her community, for two years, before the political furore in the country, inspired her to join the revolutionist party along with her friends. She was in Grade 9 then. “I travelled all over conducting cultural programmes for the party. I stopped going to school because my work with the party took up all my time,” she recalls.

After two years of travelling, weary and plagued by the guilt of having left her studies, she returned home, only to find that her parents were unable to send her to school again.

The Rewrite the Future campaign by Save the Children is working to provide education to children in conflict-affected states. The campaign has sought to ensure access and quality education for children, make schools safe and a key tool in protecting children, influence national governments and international agencies to prioritise education at the onset of an emergency and increase public and private funding for quality education for conflict affected countries. As a part of the campaign, the education programme conducted by Save the Children Alliance in Nepal provides comprehensive support to children from diverse backgrounds with limited access to education. Child Clubs in our programme areas are key links to creating access for their peers. Around 3,535 children have received scholarship support, and a joint school enrolment campaign with the Department of Education, has helped to admit 44,816 new children in primary school.

“The only solution that I could think of was seeking help from the child club. It was very heart warming to receive encouragement from the club members,” says Muna. With the assistance of her child club Muna was enrolled in Grade 9 again and also given school fee support and educational materials. “I want to work as a social worker in the near future,” she states.
Furthermore, 200 hundred alternative education classes and 60 classes for over-aged children have also been conducted to help bring them back to mainstream education. Alternative education classes help children who have dropped out of school to catch up with their studies through flexible courses designed to suit their needs. Phulkanti Kumari Yadav from Saptari had dropped out of school, “I wanted to continue later but felt shy because I was already 14 years old,” she says. When Child Club members started alternative education classes in her village she was encouraged by her uncle to join the nine-month course. Once she completed the course she was enrolled in Grade 4 but seeing her diligence and hard work, her teachers allowed her to sit for Grade 8 exams which she excelled. Today she is studying in Grade 8 with her peers and considers her education her first priority.

Collaborating and complementing government run programmes has been a commitment for Save the Children to ensure sustainability of the programmes being implemented. A new partnership with the Department of Education to provide technical assistance in the construction of schools in 23 districts stands testimony to our collaboration. Resource persons on child friendly approach to education are trained in all 75 districts in collaboration with Teachers Union Nepal and Department of Education. Moreover, a ban on corporal punishment has been mainstreamed while the process to mainstream the method of Active-Teaching Learning Method into the national teacher training system has also been initiated with National Centre for Educational Development.

Elin Gjedrem, First Secretary Embassy of Norway, Coordinator for Education Donor Group in Nepal comments, “A lot of work has been done in spite of the conflict in the education sector. It is very fortunate that the structures in Nepal were not completely destroyed and that educational services were continued with a few closures.

Perhaps it was the solidarity at community level that ensured the continuation of schools.”

The conflict years saw many schools being used for military and political purposes affecting children and teachers. For 14-year-old Navin, nothing was more important than being able to continue his study. But in Grade 8, some cadres came to his school in Tanahu district and forced him to head a committee formed by them. After this incident, rumours about Navin being the youngest commander of the district began to spread and the police searched his house and threatened him to leave his village. Fearing his safety, his family packed him off to Kathmandu. Navin’s first concern in Kathmandu was to get admitted to a school but he didn’t have the required paperwork. Navin recalls, “The teachers suspected me of misbehaving in my old school. They asked me whether I had beat a teacher and run away from my old school.” With little option of continuing his education in Kathmandu, Navin risked going back to his village to meet his teacher. He convinced his teacher to allow him to sit for his examinations and studied on his own for the rest of the term. It was only when he passed his examinations that his teacher, school and family stood steadfastly against the accusations of Navin being associated with rebel groups. Today, he is heading the Child Club in his school and also a member of the District Child Forum of Tanahu.

To keep schools safe, Save the Children and its partners launched the Children as Zones of Peace campaign in 2003. Through this campaign, both the government and rebel forces were requested to respect school areas as zones of peace to allow education services to continue in spite of the conflict. Child clubs took an active part in framing codes of conduct within the school grounds. Today 160 schools have been declared as zones of peace and following the success of the campaign, a national network of organisations working on child rights has replicated the campaign on a national scale.

In spite of these results, 700,000 primary aged children in Nepal are still out of school. A combination of poverty, fees for tuition, the cost of books and uniforms, gender inequalities, and other factors like language and inaccessibility still keep children away from schools. The development in the education sector in Nepal has been slowly but is steadily gaining ground. The possibilities of taking education programmes forward in the light of political developments are highly favourable but it requires more investment in the education sector. Elin Gjedrem agrees, “In the present context, the education sector in Nepal requires more funds, capacity building at both local and central level, dissemination of democratic education information and most importantly peace. Peace not just for schools to run normally but also to help policy makers develop good policies to take the education system forward.”

Education needs to be a greater priority in conflict affected areas and should be included as a part of humanitarian response to every emergency. The benefits of education gives a child not just an opportunity to live a fulfilled life but also contributes to lowering rates of child and maternal death, prevention of HIV and AIDS and also combating poverty benefiting the society in the long run. Education is integral to building long-term peace and prosperity and helps to transform the lives of children in conflict and the generations to follow. Therefore, overall development assistance for basic education needs to be increased and 50% of new basic education commitments must be ensured to conflict affected countries. The Rewrite the Future campaign by Save the Children is a challenge to the world to ensure millions of children out of school because of conflict get access to quality education but it will take the collective action of donors, governments, community, national and international organisations, education professionals, children and their families to get the job done.

Lets do.

On behalf of
Save the Children Alliance in Nepal
Gunnar Andersen, Country Representative,
Save the Children Norway

In collaboration with Suvani Singh Shrestha,
Save the Children Norway