Under the radar of the world's press, Education International, a federation of unions representing 30 million teachers in schools and universities in 172 countries, agreed an important declaration last week. It called for the international community, governments and armed groups fighting in conflicts to reaffirm the right to education in safety and respect schools and universities as safe sanctuaries and zones of peace. Much more global media attention was given to the decision of US President Barack Obama to make fighting extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistan his foreign policy priority in place of Iraq. The US president may not realise it yet but the two decisions are closely related. As his generals now agree, to win the war in Afghanistan they cannot simply focus on eliminating Taleban fighters: they have to restore confidence among Afghans that it is safe to go about their daily business, whether it is taking their children to school or, for teachers, turning up to take classes. In the past few years there has been an alarming rise in the number of military attacks worldwide on schools and universities, and students, teachers and education staff, as combatants choose them as soft, poorly defended targets. There have been 31,500 such attacks in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein, including the assassination of nearly 300 academics, although the rate has slowed significantly in the past year. Of growing concern now is the number of schools being bombed or burned down by the Taleban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the number of teachers being threatened with murder. At a UN General Assembly debate on education in emergencies on March 18, delegates were told that in Afghanistan 99 schools were burned down in the first eight months of 2008 and in Helmand province three out of four schools are closed. Across Afghanistan's border in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province Taleban rebels destroyed more than 150 schools last year, 99 of them schools for girls. In December the Taleban ordered 500 girls' schools in the province's Swat valley to be closed. The attacks worldwide are not confined to this region. In the far south of Thailand 99 teachers have been assassinated by Muslim separatists in the past five years, some of them shot in front of their classes. In Gaza at the turn of the year, UN-run schools were directly shelled by Israeli forces, in one case killing 30 civilians sheltering inside and injuring 55. Speaking in the UN debate, the Sheikha of Qatar, HRH Mozah Bint Nasser Al Missned, who is a Unesco special envoy for basic and higher education, called for an international mechanism to be put in place to prohibit attacks on educational institutions, punish the perpetrators and exact compensation. Nicholas Burnett, Unesco's assistant director general for education, pressed for regular monitoring of attacks 'because silence legitimates an unacceptable situation'. As author of the Unesco study Education Under Attack, which helped bring the issue to the world's attention, I too was invited to address the UN delegates, and urged them to send a message to the world that perpetrators of such attacks will be punished. Deliberate attacks on schools and hospitals are already a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. But it would send a clear signal to armed factions and leaders of governments who sanction such attacks if the definition of that crime was expanded. This could be achieved by a UN resolution making clear that the definition covers not just damage to buildings but also attacks on students and, crucially, all those who support their learning as teachers or staff at the school, as education aid workers or education officials. At the same time, this explicitly expanded meaning could be applied to the UN secretary general's monitoring of grave violations against children, which includes the crime of attacks against schools. The UN secretary general should then be urged to refer cases of attacks on education to the ICC for investigation and prosecution. The Education International declaration calls on the UN Security Council to 'to commission the creation of an international symbol for use on education buildings and education transport facilities to encourage recognition that they should be treated as safe sanctuaries and should not be targeted'. It could be something similar to the Red Cross symbol used on medical vehicles and hospitals. Don't expect a rush of support for such measures from members of the UN Security Council. In the past, great powers have been reluctant to restrict the freedom of their armed forces or diplomats with the need to conform to human rights conventions. But there is a growing number of states that recognise that education is becoming an all too frequent target in wars across the world. And it is innocent children whose lives are being snatched away or blighted psychologically and educationally by the murder of their teachers or the destruction of their schools - none more so than in Afghanistan and Taleban-controlled parts of Pakistan. It is time for President Obama and other world leaders to consider what should be done to provide better protection to students and teachers both in international law and in practice. Brendan O'Malley is author of Education Under Attack ( www.unesco.org/education/attack ) and works as an independent consultant for Unesco and Education International.
