According to Unesco, around 250 million children (16%) globally are out of school although they are of an age to be at school in their countries. Available evidence suggests that out-of-school numbers are extremely high in conflict-affected countries, though the exact number is hard to quantify. For example, in the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Eritrea, more than 50% of primary school-age children are not going to school.
Research has long shown that conflict disrupts education. But armed groups do not all operate in the same way. Some use tactics that directly target children, such as recruiting child soldiers or committing sexual violence against minors. These tactics do more than create general insecurity. They directly threaten children's safety and wellbeing.
We are a group of researchers who work on understanding the human consequences of conflict. In our recent publication on warfare's impact on schooling, assessing 30 sub-Saharan African countries, we argue that this distinction between general violence and child-targeted tactics is key to understanding school enrolment decisions.
When children are targeted by armed groups, parents and caretakers reassess safety and the risk that they are willing to take. In some cases, schools may no longer be seen as safe spaces, and the risk of sending children to school, especially younger or more vulnerable children, can feel too high.
We show that when armed groups use child recruitment or sexual violence, the impact of conflict on school enrolment is much more severe than conflicts in which these tactics are not used. They also widen existing inequalities, especially for girls.
These new findings highlight a point that's often overlooked: education systems cannot function if children do not feel safe. Protecting schooling in conflict settings therefore goes beyond rebuilding infrastructure. It requires addressing the threats that keep children out of classrooms.
Evidence from 700,000 potential school starters
Our study used nationally representative data from 59 Demographic and Health Surveys across 30 countries in sub-Saharan Africa conducted between 2010 and 2021. In total, this covered almost 700,000 children of the age that should have been starting primary school during this period. We combined this information with detailed data on where and when armed conflict occurred, and whether child soldier recruitment and sexual violence against minors took place within 25km of where children lived in the year before they were due to start school.
The results confirm a pattern many might expect: children living in areas affected by conflict are less likely to start school. But the effect is much stronger when conflict involves tactics that target children, such as recruitment and sexual violence.
In areas where children are recruited into armed groups, school enrolment falls by about 3.2% compared to children living in conflict-affected areas where this tactic was not used.
In places where they are exposed to sexual violence, the decline is even larger, around 9.5%.
These effects are not the same for all children. Girls are hit especially hard. Their likelihood of enrolling in school drops by roughly twice as much as that of boys. This is true even in contexts of child soldier recruitment – an issue often thought to mainly affect boys.
Fear, risk and parental decision-making
Why do these types of violence have such strong effects on school enrolment?
Although we cannot test this directly, anecdotal evidence suggests that fear plays a central role. When armed groups that are known to recruit children or commit sexual violence against them are active in the area, parents may begin especially to see the journey to and from school as unsafe. In some cases, it is not only the journey but also the schools themselves that are considered to be unsafe, as they are targeted or occupied by armed groups.
For example, in South Sudan in 2014 armed groups attacked schools and forcibly recruited more than 100 pupils into their ranks. In other cases, children have been exposed to sexual violence during or after school attacks, or while travelling to and from school. One stark example comes from early March 2017, when a militia attacked a school in the Congolese province of Luiza, beating male students and raping several schoolgirls.
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In these contexts, fear can decrease the willingness of children to go to school. For example, a witness of a Boko Haram attack on a school in Buni Yadi, Nigeria, told the interviewer:
After the attack, I went home. I was too afraid and decided not to go back. I told my parents I would never go back to school. They were also too afraid.
Parents and caretakers are affected too. For example, after more than 200 schoolgirls were abducted from Chibok in northern Nigeria by Boko Haram in 2014, a local parent-teacher association leader told journalists that the attack
has left families traumatised and entire communities living in fear that if their children went to school, they might never return home.
When insecurity increases, these existing challenges can tip the balance, making schooling feel like a less safe or less realistic option, especially for daughters. Girls are often perceived as particularly vulnerable during times of insecurity. At the same time, they often face additional barriers to education, such as early marriage and household responsibilities.
Implications
Our findings add an important layer to how we understand the relationship between conflict and education. It is not enough to know whether conflict is present or how intense it is in terms of casualties. What also matters is how conflict is carried out, and whether children are directly targeted.
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9 million Ethiopian children have been forced out of school: what the government must do
For policymakers and international organisations, this has clear implications. Many efforts to support education in conflict-affected areas focus on rebuilding schools, providing learning materials or improving access. These are crucial steps, but they are not enough on their own.
If children are not going to school in the first place, it is often because families do not feel it is safe to send them there. This means that protecting education also requires establishing and implementing policy that decreases child recruitment and sexual violence in conflict settings. It requires safe routes to and from school, and addressing gender-specific barriers.
