Conflict, poverty push southern Yemen’s children out of school: Save the Children
LONDON: About two-thirds of children surveyed across four districts in southern Yemen are out of school as the new academic year begins, Save the Children said on Thursday.
A survey of 2,214 households in districts across Aden, Lahj and Taiz governorates found that 32 percent of children had never enrolled in school. Another quarter had dropped out and needed urgent support to return to class.
For displaced families, the barriers are especially severe. About one-quarter of households surveyed had been forced from their homes.
Save the Children’s assessment, which reached about 14,000 people, including almost 5,000 children, found that rising food and fuel prices, reduced foreign aid and entrenched poverty are pushing more children out of classrooms.
The UN Humanitarian Response Plan for Yemen estimates that 6.6 million children, or about one-third of the country’s child population, are out of school.
For many families, education has become unaffordable. Almost one-in-five school dropout cases identified in the survey was linked to child labor, as children were sent to work to help their families survive.
Ninety-two percent of households surveyed said they did not know where their next meal would come from, while 95 percent said they relied on daily labor for income.
Eighty-four percent said they could not afford costs such as uniforms, books and other school supplies.
Across Yemen, the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, estimates that 12.5 percent of children ages 5 to 14 are engaged in child labor, rising to 15.4 percent in rural areas.
Children may collect scrap metal, work in construction or gather firewood — jobs that can expose them to injury, exploitation and further separation from school.
The pressure on families has intensified after years of conflict, economic crisis and climate shocks. More than 22.3 million people in Yemen, or about two-thirds of the population, need humanitarian assistance, including 12.2 million children.
At the same time, the humanitarian response faces a severe funding shortfall.
The UN Humanitarian Response Plan for Yemen received only 25 percent of the funding it needed last year, forcing programs to scale back or close.
Rising food and fuel costs, compounded by disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz and higher commercial shipping fees, have further strained household budgets.
Even when children can afford to attend, many schools are no longer safe or usable.
More than 2,375 schools have been damaged, destroyed or used for military purposes or as sites for internally displaced people, disrupting children’s access to consistent learning.
Students and teachers also face danger on the way to and from school.
“Yemen’s children are at risk of becoming a lost generation,” said Rishana Haniffa, Save the Children’s country director in Yemen. “The escalating crisis is pushing them out of classrooms and into dangerous work environments.
“The longer children are out of school, the less likely it is they will go back, directly impacting Yemen’s ability to rebuild after more than a decade of conflict,” she warned.
Haniffa said education must be treated as an essential part of the humanitarian response, not a secondary concern.
“Sometimes in conflict situations there is such a focus on daily survival that the importance of education gets lost,” she added. “But education isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s a basic human right for every single child in the world.
“We need increased and sustained humanitarian funding to support families to survive, so that they can send their children to school. Authorities must also restore access to safe, inclusive education.”
As aid agencies call for sustained funding and the restoration of safe, inclusive education, Saudi Arabia has expanded development and education projects in Yemen aimed at supporting economic recovery and strengthening public services.
During the second quarter of this year, the Saudi Development and Reconstruction Program for Yemen advanced construction of Al-Sabban Secondary School in Seiyun and three new colleges at Taiz University for medicine, nursing and pharmacy.
The program supports 60 education initiatives across 11 governorates.
Its human-capital investments during the quarter included a digital-skills program for 500 men and women Yemeni teachers, developed with King Abdulaziz University, as well as advanced telecommunications training for 44 local specialists in cooperation with Saudi Arabia’s Communications, Space and Technology Commission.