Children abducted, recruited into armed gangs, and taught to kill; trained to use rocket launchers, machine guns, automatic rifles, grenades. This is “learning” of the truly lethal variety, and it continues in parts of the Central Africa Republic (CAR) today, according to a report issued last week by the Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict (Watchlist) and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC):

The report tells of children kidnapped to become “child soldiers,” and details how others are raped, or used as sex slaves, with some forced to kill or maim other children.The main armed group involved is the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), and CAR’s lack of a functioning military to guard many of its citizens, has led some local communities to form self-defence militias to protect themselves from criminal gangs and groups like the LRA. Now, these militias too are recruiting children as young as 12.

What is the relevance of this for GPE's work? It’s simple. Children in school, even while conflict goes on around them, or near them, are relatively safe. Keeping them in school reduces the chances of more conflict; children out of school roam the streets and countryside and can be potential recruits for armed groups. But school attendance is one of the stabilisers of countries in conflict. GPE, increasingly, will work in fragile and post-conflict states, focusing on what is needed to keep children in the classroom, ensuring they will continue to learn. Far too many boys and girls have lost months and years of education because their schools were closed in civil wars.

In CAR, even before the current conflict, the Global Campaign for Education ranked a particular region of the country as one of the ten worst places in the world to be a student, because of chronic under-investment in education. Before the conflict, 40 per cent of children in Northern CAR were enrolled in school. In 2007, in the middle of the conflict, only 10 per cent of children were still going to school. Currently there are two textbooks for every nine students and an average of 90 children per teacher. Schools are often closed in conflict areas and few qualified teachers are willing to work there; in addition, armed groups have occupied school buildings, prevented children from attending classes regularly, and attacked teachers.

So, Watchlist/IDMC, in their May 4 press release on the report, demand that CAR’s government, the United Nations Security Council, and aid donors take action.

Education is one of the few calming factors which can ameliorate major conflicts; yes, it means teaching in a difficult situation, but schools provide children with a regular routine, giving them a much-needed sense of security, however fragile, and giving their parents some more time to earn money and feed their families. For too long, governments and aid agencies have viewed keeping children in school during emergencies as a secondary factor, not a top priority. It is a priority for FTI and will increasingly be so in the future.

In 2008, FTI awarded CAR $37.8-million to help reach its aim of achieving universal primary education by 2020. This grant will close by June 2012 . And there is also good news in CAR; the Gross Enrollment Ratio reached 91 per cent in 2009-2010, surpassing its target of 77.4 per cent, and the student/teacher ratio was 77, compared to its target of 88.

Obviously, pupils and schools in conflict hit areas are especially under threat. FTI wants to help, by supporting measures to keep boys and girls attending school, learning, and finding a safe haven in the middle of chaos — no easy goal.