British Finance Minister Gordon Brown announced United Kingdom backing for a global education rapid reaction force designed to provide schooling for millions of African children in war zones or fragile states.
In an attempt to replicate the success of the Red Cross and Medecins Sans Frontieres in health, Brown will provide £20-million to flood areas where education systems have broken down with ‘clusters” of skilled personnel.
UK Treasury sources said the effort — developed in collaboration with the United Nations and aid agencies — would be concentrated in areas such as refugee camps where children can often live for many years without formal education.
‘In 1807, a combination of social compassion and moral outrage ended the British involvement in the slave trade,” Brown said. ‘[The] same compassion and outrage must inspire us to tackle the great wrongs of our time and to give every child in the world a better chance — freed from poverty and liberated by education.”
Despite some recent progress, about 80-million children in Africa are out of school, with at least 30% of them living in countries affected by war or still fragile after conflict.
The UK believes education should be given the same priority in global humanitarian efforts as food, water and shelter, and that locally based and accountable branches of the rapid reaction force could prevent a ‘lost generation of children” having no schooling.
The chancellor said one of the biggest challenges in any conflict or crisis was the lack of skilled personnel to coordinate resources, identify needs and deliver educational intervention.
The UK will therefore channel funds through the UN children’s agency, Unicef, to help finance the first global roster of education experts able to be deployed in poor countries.
Martin Kirk, Save the Children’s head of advocacy, said: ‘The longer education is disrupted the more vulnerable children are to disease, exploitation and violence.
‘There is still an enormous challenge to getting the millions of children without an education into school. This will need billions, not millions. We need all of the world’s richest countries to come together.”–