Crisis in Mali disrupting schooling of 700,000 children – UNICEF
February 23, 2013: The education of some 700,000 children in Mali has been disrupted
due to the violence in the country, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said
today, adding that there is an urgent need to rebuild schools, train teachers and
provide learning supplies.
Northern Mali has been occupied by radical Islamists
after fighting broke out in January 2012 between Government forces and Tuareg rebels.
The conflict uprooted hundreds of thousands of people and prompted the Malian Government
to request assistance from France to stop the military advance of extremist groups.
Since the violence began over a year ago, at least 115 schools in the north
were closed, destroyed, looted and sometimes contaminated with unexploded ordnance.
Of the 700,000 children affected, 200,000 still have no access to school, UNICEF said
in a news release.
Many teachers were among those displaced and have not returned
to the northern part of the country. Instead, they are working in the already overcrowded
schools in the south, which cannot cope with the amount of displaced students from
the north.
“When a teacher is afraid to teach and when a student is afraid
to go to school, the whole education is at risk,” said UNICEF’s Representative in
Mali, Françoise Ackermans.
In the north, only one in three schools is now
functioning. In some towns, all schools remain closed, as is the case in Kidal, while
in others a few have opened. Five per cent of schools have now reopened in Timbuktu.
UNICEF noted that the violence has also had a significant psychological impact
on children, who have reported hearing gunshots at school and at home.
The
agency said it is working with the Malian educational authorities to accelerate the
return of children to school. Since December, UNICEF has trained 1,190 Malian teachers
to provide psychological support and mine-risk education to children. In addition,
more than 16,000 children have received educational materials across the country.