The report examines the different types of attacks on schools, what motivates attacks and their impact on children. Country case studies are included, looking at attacks on education in Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, occupied Palestinian territory and Israel, Pakistan and Syria.

Only very low levels of humanitarian funding are provided for education. This prevents the education sector from responding swiftly to needs after periods of intense conflict – including responding to the effects of attacks on education and restoring schooling.

This report sets out how education can be better protected from attacks and how the international community can support ways of restoring education when it has been affected by conflict. It makes recommendations to governments, the UN, and humanitarian donors and agencies.

 

The report, Education Denied: Israel’s Systematic Violation of Palestinian Children’s Right to Education, was prepared for the July 2011 High-Level Segment of UN-ECOSOC in Geneva, Switzerland and reviews the implementation of the education-related Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of the United Nations Development Agenda in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt).

The report informs that the the achievement of the MDG on education is  proving unattainable as a result of illegal policies enacted as part of Israel’s longstanding occupation. By denying Palestinian children full access to high-quality primary education, Israel, the Occupying Power, is failing to comply with its binding obligations under international law.

Through this report, PCHR asks that the international community take all appropriate measures to end Israel's repeated violations of international law which inhibit basic human rights, including education, and development goals in the oPt.

Around the world, higher education communities are overwhelmed by frequent attacks on scholars, students, staff, and their institutions. State and non-state actors, including armed militant and extremist groups, police and military forces, government authorities, off-campus groups, and even members of higher education communities, among others, carry out these attacks, which often result in deaths, injuries, and deprivations of liberty. Beyond their harm to the individuals and institutions directly targeted, these attacks undermine entire higher education systems, by impairing the quality of teaching, research, and discourse on campus and constricting society’s space to think, question, and share ideas. Ultimately, they impact all of us, by damaging higher education’s unique capacity to drive the social, political, cultural, and economic development from which we all benefit.

Through its Academic Freedom Monitoring Project, Scholars at Risk (SAR) responds to these attacks by identifying and tracking key incidents, with the aim of protecting vulnerable individuals, raising awareness, encouraging accountability, and promoting dialogue and understanding that can help prevent future threats. Since 2015, SAR has been publishing Free to Think, a series of annual reports analyzing attacks on higher education communities around the world.

Free to Think 2021 documents 332 attacks on higher education communities in 65 countries and territories. This year was marked by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which has claimed more than five million lives. For higher education, the pandemic continued to disrupt academic activity, keeping many institutions in remote states of operation and suspending most academic travel. For scholars and students, the pandemic also continued to raise questions, concerns, and criticisms about state responses to public health crises, government accountability, and societal inequities. Scholars and students took on these issues in the classroom and more public venues, in-person and online, asserting their academic freedom and their rights to freedoms of expression and assembly. They also responded to acute and more long-standing political conflicts, from Myanmar’s coup to the steady erosion of human rights in Turkey, demanding civilian led government and the protection of fundamental freedoms. Frequently, however, individuals and groups opposed to their questions and ideas sought to silence them.