Attacks on education in West and Central Africa on the rise

Attacks on education in West and Central Africa have increased in the past 10 years and universities have not been spared, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO.

Issuing the warning at the end of February in several briefing papers, UNESCO stated that most of the attacks occurred in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Niger and Nigeria and were perpetrated by armed conflict groups and government armed forces.

In one of the background papers, ‘Safeguarding education: Policy and data landscapes for the protection of education from attack in West and Central Africa’, UNESCO noted that, since 2017, armed Islamist insurgent groups have been targeting the higher education sector in Burkina Faso. Universities that have been forced to suspend classes from time to time include Dori University and the University of Fada N’Gourma.

In Cameroon, armed separatist groups driven by concerns about the marginalisation of the English-speaking north-west and south-west regions of the country have been engaged in a boycott of education since 2017.

The University of Buea and the University of Bamenda, which are located in those areas, have been under attack several times. According to UNESCO, attacks on education in the far north region of Cameroon have also been carried out by Boko Haram, spreading over the border from Nigeria.

Similarly, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, attacks on education have escalated since 2012, following the outbreak of conflict between the M23 rebel group and the Congolese armed forces, or FARDC, and institutions in the eastern provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri have been the most heavily impacted. “Attacks are carried out by the FARDC, M23, Hutu militia groups, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, and the Allied Democratic Forces,” says UNESCO.

In Mali, schools and universities are also exposed to rebel attacks. Last year, the United Nations reported that about 1,500 out of 9,000 schools in the country were closed or non-functional as a result of insecurity, disrupting the education of half a million learners.

One of the higher education institutions at risk in Mali is the prestigious L’Institut des Hautes Etudes et de Recherches Islamiques Ahmed Baba de Tombouctou (Ahmed Baba Institute of Higher Learning and Islamic Research) in Timbuktu, which is still recovering from a 2012 attack. According to UNESCO, the institute has manuscripts of the history of Mali dating from the 14th and 16th centuries.

Nigeria

However, the situation is much worse in Nigeria, where education in the past decade has been disrupted by attacks carried out by Boko Haram, whose actions stem from ideological opposition to secular education and who are in favour of an Islamic-driven education. Most of the attacks on education in Nigeria, according to UNESCO, take the form of abductions, looting and violence against students and teachers.

In a briefing paper, ‘Safeguarding education: Policy and data landscapes for the protection of education from attack in Nigeria’, UNESCO says attacks had been concentrated in the north-eastern states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, as well as Zamfara.

Quoting statistics from the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, or GCPEA, UNESCO notes that, in 2020-21, more than 1,400 students were abducted, and more than 100 university students and academics were injured, abducted or killed in at least 20 reported attacks on tertiary institutions.

GCPEA is an inter-agency coalition formed in 2010 to deal with the problem of targeted attacks on education in countries affected by armed conflict and insecurity.

Some of the universities that were under attack last year in Nigeria included Abia State University, Akwa Ibom State University, Arthur Jarvis University, University of Ibadan, and Osun State College of Technology. Others were: Federal University Gusau, Plateau State University and the University of Jos.

Although the University of Maiduguri, or UNIMAID, was not on the list of Nigeria’s universities that were attacked by rebel groups last year, the university had been under incessant attack previously. UNMAID is located in Borno State, which is considered to be the homeland of Boko Haram.

Political, cultural, religious and ethnic considerations

Amid efforts to clarify what appears to be an attack on education, UNESCO has adopted the GCPEA framework that defines attacks on education as any threatened or actual use of force against students, teachers, academics, education personnel, education buildings, resources or facilities. It also includes the use of schools and universities for military purposes by armed forces and non-state armed groups.

In this context, UNESCO considers attacks on higher education to be unprovoked attacks on students, academics and other personnel, as well as incidents of excessive use of force at higher education-related protests, or use of university facilities for military purposes. It also covers situations whereby students, academics and other personnel are arrested, detained, injured, or killed during repression incidents.

Drawing attention to the situation in the six countries, UNESCO noted that the attacks, whether on basic or higher education, are mostly perpetrated by a range of non-state conflict actors that are motivated by political, cultural, religious and ethnic considerations.

High on the list is Boko Haram, whose attacks are spreading beyond Nigerian borders into Cameroon, Chad and Niger. According to Human Rights Watch, Boko Haram militants use tactics that include looting and burning, forced recruitment of male students, abduction of female students, suicide-bomb attacks, intimidation and harassment of teachers and destruction of teaching certificates.

“In recent years, their attacks have grown more violent and have become more deadly,” says Marilou Baron, a researcher and consultant on education in emergencies at UNESCO.

Youth unemployment

But more worrying to UNESCO is the lack of employment among the youth, including university graduates, which could easily become a catalyst for them to join armed groups in Africa.

According to a study, Journey to Extremism in Africa: Pathways to recruitment and disengagement, that was conducted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) last year, pathways to recruitment to violent extremist groups in the continent are made possible by lack of jobs, and not religious beliefs.

But access to quality education, says Achim Steiner, the UNDP administrator, could fortify resilience to violent extremism as economic incentives are key to understanding the drivers of violent extremism.

Taking this into account, UNESCO and the GCPEA are urging governments and their armed forces in countries impacted by terror groups to protect the civilian character of schools and universities and cease attacks and threats of attacks against students, teachers, academics and educational facilities.

In its briefing papers on safeguarding education, UNESCO has urged governments to stop the use of facilities in schools and universities by armed forces. The issue is that education in the six African countries under study as well as elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially in Chad and the Central African Republic has been disrupted by the destruction and military use of learning facilities.

UNESCO has also urged African countries affected by attacks on universities and schools to adopt GCPEA’s guidelines for protecting schools and universities from military use during armed conflict.

One of the key guidelines is to refrain from using universities and schools as polling stations. “When educational facilities serve as polling stations during elections, in some contexts they have become targets for armed groups attempting to disrupt electoral processes,” stated GCPEA in its report, Non-State Armed Groups and Attacks on Education: Exploring trends and practices to curb violations, that was published in September last year.

The emerging perception is that not using schools and universities for these purposes may limit non-state armed group attacks on education in some countries.

Nevertheless, although most of the six countries where universities and schools are hit by attacks in Africa are signatories to the ‘Safe Schools Declaration’, an inter-governmental political commitment to protect students, teachers, schools and universities from the effects of armed conflict, the current situation shows implementation of the non-binding pact is weak.

In this regard, UNESCO and GCPEA say attacks on education by armed groups in West and Central Africa are rising as a result of complex political and economic situations prevailing there. Further, what is not in doubt is that risks are high that the problem could escalate beyond those borders.