Attacks against schools

Increasingly, students, teachers and education infrastructures are being deliberately targeted. In some situations, the fear of being attacked on their way to school or at school deprives girls of their basic right to learn and shape their future. In other places, schools are used as recruiting grounds and entire classes have been abducted to be used as child combatants.

Beyond the destruction of educational facilities through deliberate targeting or as collateral damage during armed confrontation, attacks against education also present other faces. For instance, there are reports of the use of acid and gas on girl students on their way to or at school, as well as shooting and suicide bombings in school premises.

In this response to this crisis of education in conflict, Member States, United Nations entities and civil society organizations have undertaken a concerted campaign in the past several years, which resulted in the adoption of the General Assembly in July 2010 or resolution 64/290 on the right to education in emergency situations. The resolution affirms that attacks on educational buildings is a war crime and threatens the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, including in the context of education for all.