What is the relationship between education and fragility? How can education mitigate fragility and promote stability? This article from The Journal of Education for International Development presents a new framework for education programming in fragile and conflict-affected states. Developed by USAID in 2006, the framework casts education in the forefront of programming priorities as a response to conflict in countries affected by unrest.
The Education and Fragility Framework positions education at the centre of four key domains: economic, governance, security and social. Education is viewed within the context of the root causes of fragility, such as organised violence, corruption, exclusion, transitional dynamics, insufficient capacity and public disengagement. Education can mitigate these root causes of fragility, promote stability and bridge the gap between humanitarian assistance and development. Providing security to staff and students is the priority.
Education interventions which aim to mitigate fragility and promote stability require good understanding of the characteristics of a particular conflict. Research calls into question the validity of following access-for-all models and prompts decision-makers to adopt different and non-traditional approaches. Such approaches should weigh trade-offs and establish decision priorities.
The USAID framework has identified five main fragility factors: corruption and rent-seeking; organised violence; exclusion and elitism; lack of capacity and will; and public disengagement. Findings on four of these factors and how they relate to education in fragile states include the following:
- Organised violence and lack of security have a devastating impact on the delivery of education and impede attendance, retention, completion and learning. Pupils and staff cannot attend school for fear of attacks or abduction.
- Corruption in education includes inequitable distribution of resources, misuse of funds and awarding grades or teaching positions in exchange for cash or sex. These and other corruption factors constitute drivers of fragility and conflict.
- Exclusion from education is a powerful trigger for instability. The spectrum of exclusion practices may be wide, but practices may also be difficult to identify. The exclusion of youth raises the question of whether universal primary education should be a priority.
- A myriad of obstacles undermine the capacity of a state to recruit, train and maintain teachers. Characteristics of this capacity gap include a disparate teaching corps, absence of teacher records, dysfunctional training institutions and poorly paid teachers.
Implications of the above for education programming to mitigate fragility and promote stability include the following:
- Providing security to staff and students is the priority. Education workers can develop programmes to protect threatened students and teachers, provide alternative education services, address gender-based violence and provide psycho-social support.
- Measures to mitigate corruption include establishing a framework for the use of education resources and improving capacity to manage resources. Addressing corruption through education requires action on a number of governance issues.
- Options for addressing exclusion include increasing access to education for neglected groups, supporting the expansion of secondary schools and increasing the availability of non-formal education.
- Traditional responses to the need to rebuild teaching capacity have included the provision of teacher training workshops. However, other crucial factors, including rebuilding the teacher corps before or during training, must be a priority.
