Education in a world of conflict and division

This special edition is focused on the challenges that face education in situations of conflict and division in the contemporary world. Armed conflict has caused devastation in the past year in Ukraine and, over a longer period of time, in other parts of the world, notably Afghanistan, Syria and the Democratic Republic of Congo. These armed conflicts have had a profound effect on the lives of children and young people and their school education. In some instances, schools have been damaged or destroyed or been appropriated for military purposes. Large numbers of children have been internally or externally displaced and, as a result, their schooling is limited or disrupted. There are serious challenges for the inclusion of externally displaced children in educational systems in terms of accommodating the language, culture and, in some cases, the religion of the children. There are other forms of political, sectarian, ethnic or cultural division that can impact on school education. Schooling can be divided on ethnic or religious grounds, children separated from the other because of historical conflicts or as a result of discriminatory political engineering. In some parts of the world children can be excluded from mainstream schools, taught in non-integrated classrooms or be assigned to special schools that are under resourced. This can be discerned, for example, in the treatment of Roma children in parts of Eastern Europe.