In eight countries in the region, the number of school closings has gone up, and it is indicated that more than 12,400 schools would have been closed by the end of the 2021-22 school year.
In Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Niger, more than half of all children and adolescents do not have access to an education.
The number of abandoned schools in the Central Sahel area alone climbed by 66 percent during the course of the most recent academic year.
Schools are either directly targeted by assaults carried out by non-state armed organizations or kids avoid attending school out of fear of being attacked.
Children and teenagers are denied the opportunity to get an education because violence causes whole communities to lose their resources and leave, cutting off their access to school.
The problem of preventing an entire generation from growing up without the ability to read or write is presenting this part of the world with a task that has never been seen before.
Their future is dependent on the capacity of governments to prioritize the repair, reopening, and safety of schools that have been damaged or destroyed, and to strengthen alternate learning options when those things are not feasible.
It is imperative that all parties involved in the conflicts in the area take actionable steps to put a stop to the exploitation of educational facilities for military purposes.
The international financing that is given to the education sector is also often among the lowest of the humanitarian responses in the Central and West Africa area.
In 2021, donor nations gave less than a quarter of the funding required to cover the emergency education demands; this was half of the allocation that had been made in 2018.
In Burkina Faso, where one third of all schools in the area are presently shuttered, the money that has been donated by donors so far this year is just 20 cents per month for every displaced kid under the age of 15.
Tomorrow is the International Day to Protect Education from Attack, and in honor of this day, three humanitarian organizations have issued a joint call to action to governments, military forces, other parties to conflicts, and the international community, urging them to take coordinated action to cease assaults and threats against schools, students, and teachers, as well as to scale up sustainable support for excellent education for every child in the area.
