A survey disclosed last Friday by UNICEF reveals that 70% of students surveyed are not attending school in the midst of the ongoing chaos of the Central African Republic Conflict.
The report also reveals other shocking statistics. Approximately 65% of the schools surveyed had been looted, occupied or damaged by bullets and shells. 80% of respondents said that fear of violence was the main reason that students were reluctant to return to their studies. Overall, nearly half of all schools are closed and students across the region have lost an average of six months of school time.
A lot is being done in response to the crisis. For instance, 1,352 primary school teachers from UNICEF and other NGO’s have been transported back to their posts within the region. Nearly 25,000 children who had been forced out of schools are not taking catch-up classes to prepare for this year’s final exams. An additional 40,000 children are scheduled to start learning again in the coming weeks.
Yet, UNICEF is stressing that more needs to be done. Earlier this year, it appealed to the international community for a sum of $11.5 million in aid. UNICEF has since tripled that amount to US$32 million. One third of the funding has been received.
The survey was conducted in 176 out of 1,933 primary schools in 11 of the 17 prefectures in the Central African Republic. The report stresses that its results should be taken with a grain of salt. On page six, it states: “these findings should be interpreted as only pertaining to the schools assessed; due to the purposive sampling strategy utilized, the findings should not be generalized to all schools in the prefectures.” The report also reveals that difficulty with travel and dwindling resources prevented the survey from being conducted in six of the prefectures.
You can read the full report here.
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