This indicator measures the total number of reported attacks on students, teachers and/or other educational personnel perpetrated by armed forces or armed groups (from government and/or opposition groups) at schools, universities or other educational facilities, or on the way to or from them, in the last 12 months or during another designated period of time. It is the sum of the number of incidents of threats and/or intimidations; persons suffering from physical injuries, torture, sexual violence; killings, enforced disappearances, child recruitment, and incidents of placing students and teachers in harm’s way. It does not include students/teachers/personnel injured or harmed in attacks on schools/universities as those constitute another category of attack.
Virtual library of the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict, OCHA’s Humanitarian Data Exchange’s Education and Conflict Monitor, the reports of the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA), and GCPEA and Insecurity Insight’s Education in Danger newsbrief.
Article 1 (A), Article 2 (1), Article 13 (1,4), International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; Article 29 (2), Convention on the Rights of the Child; Article 2, Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict; Articles 4, 13, 32, 50 & 94, Geneva Convention IV; Article 48, 49, 50, 51, 57, 58, 77 & 78, Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions; Art 4 (2, 3° Additional Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions; International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance; Article 2 (2) Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; Article 1 (A), Article 2 (1), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; Article 7, (g) (i) & article 8 (2) (b) (ix), Rome Statute;; Article 13 (5), Protocol of San Salvador; Article 11 (7), African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child; Article 14 (3), European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights; Article 27 (3) ILO Convention 169; Article 18, Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse. UN Security Council resolutions: 1261 (1999), 1314 (2000), 1379 (2001), 1460 (2003), 1539 (2004), 1612 (2005), 1820 (2008), 1882 (2009), 1998 (2011), 2068 (2012), 2143 (2014), 2225 (2015), 2427 (2018).
Add up all the reported incidents identified and qualified in the indicator Have students, teachers and other educational personnel been attacked at, or on the way to or from schools, universities or other educational facilities? (Disaggregation level II:A-H). Note that students, teachers and personnel injured or harmed in attacks on schools and universities are not included in the count because they are included in another category of attack (attacks on schools, universities and/or other educational facilities).
A high number of reported attacks on students, teachers and or other educational personnel indicates that states are not complying with their legal obligation to protect, realise and fulfill the right to education. Other than the physical and psychological impacts of such attacks, they may also have important consequences on the availability and accessibility of the right to education. Furthermore, a high number of attacks on students, teachers and/or personnel may create a climate of insecurity: parents may avoid sending their girls to school for fear that something might happen to them, and teachers and staff may refrain from going to work. This might lead to an increase in drop-out rates and teachers’ absenteeism as well as a decrease in gross enrollment rate. The indicator can be applied at a regional, national or subnational level.