Tools to improve education in emergencies

Dakar - Ten years after the Dakar Education For All forum, the global educators’ coalition, Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), has launched revised tools to improve governments’ and aid agencies’ education responses in emergencies.

The new handbook, which outlines minimum standards for setting up education programmes in natural disasters and conflict zones, reflects changes the sector has undergone since the last published edition in 2004. These include the since-formed education 'cluster,' a coordination group of UN agencies and non-profits working in education, and a new focus on the links between education and disaster risk reduction as well as conflict mitigation, Marian Hodgkin, INEE coordinator for partnerships and knowledge management, told IRIN.

“The minimum standards play an important role in putting education on an equal basis with other traditional humanitarian sectors,” Hodgkin told IRIN.

Over half of the children worldwide who have not completed primary school live in countries affected by armed conflict according to NGO Save the Children.

As well as improving the handbook, additional tools include: guidance notes for teachers instructing in emergencies; an outline of how to secure funding for emergency education; and a pocket guide to encouraging equal school access for boys and girls. The new tools also stress coordination, said Hodgkin. “We are focusing on how education responses can be as holistic as possible...and we hope that lots of different organizations can start to speak a common [emergency education] language.”