EDUCO: FIVE KEY ACTIONS TO END VIOLENCE AT SCHOOL

  • Training, active listening, investment, support networks and secure facilities are key to making schools safe.
  • Globally, 1 in 3 children and adolescents are victims of bullying in schools.
  • Corporal punishment is still permitted in schools in 63 countries.

22 January 2024.- To mark International Education Day, which will be celebrated on Wednesday 24 January, the children’s NGO Educo stresses that education keeps children away from violence and that schools should be safe spaces for all children.

“Children have the right to be protected as set out in the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child. Unfortunately, many children suffer from violence of different types and degrees. What’s more, sometimes they are not aware because they have normalised it in their lives”, explains Pilar Orenes, Educo’s Executive Director. The United Nations estimates that some 160 million children work, half of them in jobs that put their lives at risk. There are also 12 million girls who are forced into marriage each year. Another shocking statistic is that of child trafficking. Globally, 2.5 million people are victims of trafficking, half of them under the age of 18, however it is estimated that for each identified victim there are another 20 that are unaccounted for. “These figures are only the tip of the iceberg. There is a lot of violence against children that is totally invisible, either because society does not recognise it as violence or because neither they nor their communities dare to report it, which means we are unaware of the lack of protection of millions of children all over the world. What we do know is that education is always part of the solution to end violence”, adds Orenes.

Going to school and having access to a quality education are key factors for keeping children away from violence such as trafficking, child labour, child marriage and other abuses. Education gives them tools to defend themselves and, above all, it offers them alternatives. “In general, schools are safe spaces where children are protected. But we have to admit that violence creeps into classrooms in many different ways and we need to work hard to stop this from happening,” says the organisation’s CEO. Globally, it is estimated that 1 in 3 children and adolescents are victims of bullying, a proportion that rises to almost half of all students on the African continent (48.2%) and in the Middle East (41.1%), according to UNESCO data. Corporal punishment is still used as a corrective and disciplinary method in many contexts. It is legally prohibited in schools in 132 countries but is still permitted in 63. In wars, armed conflicts and natural disasters, children’s right to education is still one of the first rights lost and one of the last to be restored. During 2020 and 2021, more than 5,000 attacks on schools and universities were reported, including military use of facilities. In the same period, at least 9,000 students and teachers were injured or killed.

Faced with this reality, Educo, as an NGO that defends children’s right to education, proposes five key actions for making schools safer places for children:

1. Training. In order to combat violence in schools, it is essential that students, teachers, families, and the community know what rights children have and what practices, such as hitting, abandonment or child marriage, are forms of violence. Positive education and treatment must also be promoted.

2. Active listening. Making schools safer means actively listening to students and involving them in the issues that affect them. It is essential that they feel that they can speak out about what is happening to them without fear and know that they will be helped if they need to be, whether at school, at home or in their community. In addition, their opinions should be taken into account when establishing school rules about respect for others.

3. Safe facilities. Schools should not be attacked, as stipulated in international law. But there must also be no places or areas within these centres that are isolated and inaccessible, where aggressions can be committed unnoticed.

4. Investment. Without funding, a safe, quality public school is not possible. It is therefore necessary to urge governments to make a financial commitment. In fact, education worldwide is underfunded by almost 100 billion dollars according to UNESCO estimates.

5. Support networks. Encouraging networking between school, community, families, and governments will enable not only the school, but the environments children are in to become safer and to make specific and effective laws to protect them.


“The International Day of Education is a good time to celebrate how far we have come, but also to remember how far we still have to go. We are still a long way from meeting the 2030 Agenda for quality education in safe environments. Getting started on these five measures will help us achieve goals that are looking more and more distant,” says Orenes.


About Educo:
Educo has been working for more than 30 years to defend children’s rights: especially the right to receive a quality education. We currently carry out more than 200 projects in 14 countries in which 1 million children, adolescents and young people participate. We are part of the ChildFund international alliance, which has 11 international organisations and is present in 70 countries, supporting 32 million children and their families.


Kathleen D. Tipono
Communication and Advocacy Officer
kathleen.tipono@educo.org
+63.977.213.8147