In early June recent PFMH grad Cyril Bennouna presented his latest research looking at attacks on education. Rosemary Nzuki of Columbia Global Center Nairobi reports on the panel and discussion below. You can learn more about the work being done at Columbia Global Center Nairobi here.
Education under attack report released in Nairobi
11 June 2015; Nairobi, Kenya…
A group of thirty key stakeholders from the education sector in Kenya gathered at the Columbia Global Centers – Africa to deliberate the future of education in areas plagued by insecurity and conflict. The stakeholders were drawn from the Ministry of Education, various United Nations Agencies and Non- Governmental Organizations, such as the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), European Union, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Adventist Development and Relief Agency, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) among others, as well as universities, including the University of Nairobi, Kenyatta University and Columbia University.
The purpose of the meeting was to disseminate research findings carried out in Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), especially in light of recent events in the east Africa region. The meeting also presented a valuable opportunity to convene a diversity of experts to explore strategies for better protecting schools and universities from attack, while improving monitoring systems. The research was a result of collaborative efforts between Columbia University and Protect Education in Insecurity and Conflict (PEIC), a program of the Education Above All Foundation.
The research sought to characterize the frequency and type of attacks on education in countries of study and to advance new methodologies to strengthen timely monitoring of such events. In recent years, violent attacks on education have become an important issue for the public and policymakers alike, with major attacks being widely covered by the news media, from the kidnapping of school girls in Nigeria by Boko Haram to the deadly attack on Garissa University College in Kenya by the militant Somali group Al-Shabaab followed shortly after by the bombing of the Ministry of Education in Mogadishu..
In his opening remarks, Dr. Belay Begashaw the Regional Director for the Columbia Global Centers – Africa termed the discussions as timely and welcomed the group as they came together to discuss and identify solutions to this critical issue.
