Dr Leslie Casely-Hayford, Director of Associates for Change, has called for innovative and affordable approaches to ensure that children in conflict and emergencies continue to have access to education.

She said children should not be deprived of their fundamental right to education because of conflict, displacement, school closures or the absence of teachers.

Dr Casely-Hayford made the call ahead of a high-level conference on Education in Emergencies, which will bring together education stakeholders, researchers, innovators, financiers, academics and regional bodies to examine strategies for ensuring continuity of education during crises.

She said Associates for Change had, over the past two to three years, worked with the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada to support implementation and scaling research in fragile and conflict-affected areas of West Africa.

The research, she said, covered countries including Ghana, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Liberia and Sierra Leone, where communities had either experienced conflict or were currently facing varying forms of instability.

According to her, the factors contributing to instability in the sub-region were varied and included land disputes, chieftaincy conflicts, illegal mining and poverty.



She said the research was therefore seeking educational innovations that could be implemented and scaled up by governments at relatively low cost, particularly in communities affected by conflict and other emergencies.

“Where do those children go to school when there is conflict? When the teachers have fled? When the schools are closed?” she asked, stressing the need for innovative responses to ensure that children continued to learn even during crises.

Again, Dr Casely-Hayford noted that education was a fundamental right and that governments and society had a responsibility to create opportunities for every child to access at least basic education, regardless of their circumstances.

Among the innovations being researched, she noted, was the provision of psychosocial support to teachers at the pre-service level to prepare them for deployment to fragile and conflict-affected communities.

Such training, she explained, would equip teachers with the necessary skills to manage their own psychosocial well-being while also providing appropriate support to children affected by conflict and trauma.

Dr Casely-Hayford also highlighted complementary basic education, as another approach being explored.

She cited the “speed schools” model, where children who are out of school receive mother-tongue literacy and numeracy instruction for a year before transitioning into the formal education system at an appropriate level.

She said Ghana was already implementing complementary basic education through the Complementary Education Agency (CEA), which had received support to reach about 20,000 children this year.

However, she added that the intervention needed to be significantly expanded, considering that more than one million children were currently out of school in Ghana.



Dr Casely-Hayford expressed hope that the high-level conference would generate practical and scalable solutions to strengthen education systems and ensure that children affected by emergencies continued to receive quality education.