Jihadism threatens education and the future of the Sahel

The closure of thousands of schools in the Sahel by the relentless attacks of jihadist groups has put in jeopardy not only the education of hundreds of thousands of children, as well as the own future of that African region. Teachers like Pierre Ouédraogo, who always knew he wanted to be a teacher in northern Burkina Faso to help those children who had the hardest time getting to school, are living through this tragedy. When he was told that it was too dangerous, he replied that it didn't matter, that the future of these children was the most important thing.

But when he finished school and started his first year there, he couldn't even finish the year because of increased insecurity from attacks by jihadist groups that also target schools. "There was so much insecurity that we were forced to leave our post and flee," the teacher, whose name is fictitious for security reasons, told Efe by telephone. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), at the end of April this year 2,410 schools remained closed in Burkina Faso, affecting 318,000 children, because of the Jihadist threat.

But Burkina Faso is not the only country facing this problem in the region, where more than 5,400 schools are closed and 700,000 students are uneducated as a result, in addition to Burkina Faso itself, Mali, Niger and Nigeria. In Mali, in conflict since 2012, there are 1,261 schools closed due to insecurity, with more than 378,000 children affected, with the region of Mopti (centre) where 60% of the schools were closed, according to the latest data collected by UNICEF last March.

In northeast Nigeria, Boko Haram and his factions have caused the closure of more than 1,500 schools since the beginning of the violence in 2009, 910 have been damaged or destroyed, 19,000 teachers have been displaced and 611 have been killed, according to data provided to Efe by UNICEF in this country. In addition, in the region of Tillabéri, in Niger, which shares a border with Mali and Burkina Faso, insecurity has led to the closure of 263 schools that house 23,148 children, according to figures from the Regional Directorate of Primary Education in early March.

"Schools are targeted by jihadists simply because they believe that the Koran and Arabic should be taught to children, not the things of whites," Ouédraogo said from the most affected country in the region, where the first threats to schools began in February 2017 and became effective in March of that year with the first murder of a teacher, aged just 28.

Cecilia Meynet, UNICEF's education coordinator in Mali, explains that these threats are "mainly against school principals and teachers" and that they are often related to the perception of schools "as symbols of the state" by terrorists seeking to establish Shariah (Islamic law). "These groups believe that attacking schools would affect the state, as they are owned by the government and represent the public administration system," the UNICEF Nigeria team told Efe by email. "When you are there, life is something else. You can't talk the way you want to. When you say something, you don't trust it; and when you go out, you don't trust it either. And as they point out to the teachers, we were not psychologically stable. It was a bad experience and I don't wish it on anyone," recalls Ouédraogo, who was transferred to another region of Burkina Faso in 2019.

In most cases, classrooms are closed "as a preventive measure due to insecurity in the region; very few schools were attacked by armed groups compared to the number of schools closed," Elena Locatelli, UNICEF's Education in Emergencies Officer for West and Central Africa, told Efe. Sometimes, "the school may be closed because of a lack of teachers who, out of fear, do not want to serve in the affected areas," Meynet notes.

Beyond the insecurity caused by jihadism, West and Central Africa is home to the largest number of out-of-school children in the world, estimated at 41 million aged 6-15 years before the coronavirus pandemic, which has also forced the closure of schools, further complicating the situation.

With the closure of schools in northeastern Nigeria, some children are continuing their education in Koranic centres where they learn the Koran from memory, while others are engaged in begging or helping their parents with household tasks. A system of education that was, in the words of the UNICEF Nigeria team, "unequal and underperforming" is compounded by school backwardness which, according to Locatelli, "can influence their ability to return to the school system.

Missing school makes children more vulnerable to child labour, migration, begging, early marriage, early pregnancy, prostitution, drugs or membership of jihadi groups. "The large number of out-of-school children and young people, mostly from extremely poor families, provide fertile ground for recruitment into armed extremist groups," the experts from Nigeria point out.

For the Burkinabe teacher, the closure of schools is a problem because "the development of a country comes from education. As former South African President Nelson Mandela said: "Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world". However, Locatelli warns that "in communities affected by conflict, violence and instability, education is often the first service to be disrupted and the last to be restored".

The fact that schoolchildren cannot go to school has an immediate impact on their lives because school also plays a protective role, providing stability, a framework to help them cope with the traumas they have experienced, protection from any kind of exploitation, and their daily food. But it also has a long-term impact because there is "a very clear correlation between poverty, armed violence, child marriage and irregular migration as a result of lack of education," warns UNICEF Nigeria.

For Meynet, who recalls that more than half of Mali's population is under 18 years old, "girls and boys who receive a quality education have the opportunity to thrive, to pursue their dreams and to reach their full potential". This is why the attack on the schools of the Sahel threatens not only the present, also the future of these countries.