Two-day National Consultation on Education in Areas Affected by Civil Strife

Updated on: Friday, December 14, 2012

"Schools in strife areas need to be re-defined to meet the multiple and complex needs of children in affected areas, schools need to become inclusive spaces and examine the violence within the schools, community participation and role of school management committees and gram panchayats critical in ensuring schooling for children and need to build a cadre of community mobilisers/facilitators who can work both with community and the system."

These are some of the key recommendations suggested at the two-day National Consultation on Education in Areas Affected by Civil Strife organized in Delhi on December 10-11, 2012.

The consultation was inaugurated by the minister of human resource development, M M Pallam Raju. The deliberation was jointly organized by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights(NCPCR), National University of Educational Planning and Administration(NUEPA)and UNICEF. The consultation discussed the issues and challenges of implementing the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education enacted in April 2010 in areas affected by civil strife with a particular focus on advancing quality education with equity.

Urmila Sarkar, chief of education, said at the concluding session, "Although there have been challenges, it is heartening to see the efforts made by the community, government and civil society organizations in enabling children to continue schooling. There is much to learn from the field experiences, the importance of community participation, making schools as 'Zones of Peace' and focused attention on special groups like orphans and internally displaced children are some lessons that need to be shared and scaled."

Focusing on the critical need for quality education in these areas, Dhir Jhingran, RTE national coordinator, RTE Monitoring Cell, NCPCR said: "There is a need of having a different cadre of teachers to engage with children affected by strife. We need to prepare this cadre that will understand the children's particular needs and promote learning through quality teaching. We need to review and revamp preand in-service teacher training for teachers in these areas."

Over 100 representatives from central and state governments, civil society organisations, media, UN agencies, academicians and community members came together for the key consultation. Some of the key recommendations to re-configure schools in conflict areas are schools in strife areas need to be re-defined to meet the multiple and complex needs of children in affected areas; schools need to become inclusive spaces and examine the violence within the schools, that comes from discrimination in various forms; focus on quality of teaching learning fundamental - review the quality of teaching learning practices to ensure comparable attainment amongst children in strife affected areas; focus on teachers - harmonise different teacher cadre, ensure appropriate remuneration and facilities, security, psycho-social care for teachers is also essential; there is an urgent need to review the pre and in-service teacher training programs for teachers working in these areas.

Other recommendations include issues of child protection, health and psycho-social care need to be addressed to enable RTE implementation; inter- agency, inter-department planning, coordination and review essential; effective multi-layered child tracking system a must.

The consultation also recommended deriving strategies from the field such as role of community; community participation and role of school management committees and gram panchayats in ensuring schooling for children; the need to build a cadre of community mobilisers/facilitators who can work both with community and the system; promote engagement of youth as mobilisers, role models and champions.

Learning from South Asia the deliberation suggested schools as zones of peace; free schools and children from conflict, establish code of conduct within and outside school; ensure conflict free class rooms and ensure that schools work uninterrupted for the RTE stipulated number of days.

Specific Category of Children need responsive programming like, orphans, internally displaced children, tribal children and girls.

The consultation is a culmination of a year-long work of a National Steering Committee convened by NCPCR, NUEPA and UNICEF with, Dr.Shanta as Chair and comprising of representatives from the relevant ministries, academia, UN and civil society.

Two-day National Consultation on Education in Areas Affected by Civil Strife

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