Wars and disasters—whether natural (like floods, earthquakes) or man-made (like armed conflict)—create severe disruptions to education systems. The most prominent educational problems in such contexts include:
1. School Closures and Infrastructure Damage
- Schools are often destroyed or used as shelters or military bases.
- Lack of safe, accessible learning spaces halts formal education for extended periods.
2. Displacement and Loss of Access
- Children and youth may be forced to flee, becoming refugees or internally displaced, often with no access to schools.
- Host communities may be overwhelmed, leading to overcrowded classrooms and limited resources.
3. Shortage of Teachers and Learning Materials
- Teachers may be killed, displaced, or unwilling to work in unsafe conditions.
- Textbooks, supplies, and digital resources may be lost or inaccessible.
4. Psychosocial Trauma
- War and disaster expose children to violence, loss, and fear, affecting concentration, attendance, and long-term learning capacity.
- Lack of mental health support in schools compounds the issue.
5. Gender Inequities and Protection Risks
- Girls are disproportionately affected—more likely to drop out due to early marriage, household duties, or risk of gender-based violence.
- Children may be recruited by armed groups or exposed to exploitation and abuse.
6. Disruption to Learning Progress and Dropout
- Interrupted schooling leads to learning loss and disengagement.
- Many children never return to school, particularly adolescents.
7. Digital Divide and Inequitable Remote Learning
- In crises like pandemics or displacement, remote learning becomes vital, but poor infrastructure and lack of internet or devices exclude the most vulnerable.
8. Weak Coordination and Funding Gaps
- Education is often under-prioritized in emergency response.
- Humanitarian and government coordination may be slow or inadequate.
Not only wars and disaster impact education. Politics does also!
HE for refugees means an opportunity for shared prosperity
Cuts to international aid programmes by the Trump administration and moves to revoke student visas highlight the precariousness of refugee higher education – the provision of which educators through the ages have understood as both a moral obligation and a profound opportunity for intercultural learning...
"Both the UNHCR officials interviewed for this article and professors in the United States discussed the impact of the arrests and detentions of international students in the United States and the threat that displaced students in America now feel. According to Berger, “the amount of uncertainty and chaos that has been wreaked on both our SEVIS [Student Exchange and Visitor Programme] and international students and the visa system is unprecedented. “The effect on the students is not just a feeling. This sense of not belonging, that at any moment ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] or other institutions could conspire to forcibly remove them from their campus communities really impacts the academic mission and environment on our campuses”..."
https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20250507102832475
Rebuilding Gaza’s higher education: Lessons from the void
Gaza’s university leaders are attempting in various ways to keep some semblance of higher education delivery going amid relentless existential crises. Their experiences offer us key insights into the kind of higher education system that will be needed after the conflict ends...
https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20250527163323968&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=SDGNL9036
Afghan academics, students fleeing Iran face bleak future
Refugees from all walks of life are being expelled from Iran, among them teachers, academics and students from Afghanistan, with an evident surge in refugees fleeing Iran for Afghanistan in June after Israeli airstrikes hit Iranian military targets. According to official Iranian figures, more than 60,000 Afghan students were studying at Iranian universities as of December 2024. The number of Afghan students in Tehran surpassed that of Kabul. At the same time, more than 600,000 Afghan children were enrolled in Iranian schools...
https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20250702181302973
Standing Up To Sanctions
The often overlooked impact of economic sanctions on education and academia...
"We often hear about countries sanctioning one another as a punitive measure in place of military action, to spare lives and civil infrastructure. But there is strong academic criticism of the effectiveness of sanctions, with a key concern being that, even broad economic actions can have disastrous consequences to real people just trying to live and work.
Some of these consequences are straightforward: sanctions can reduce access to fuel, food, power and so on, but they also impact some areas of society with wide reaching and lasting effects. Education, in particular, can suffer greatly, affecting lives in a worrying number of ways..."
https://magazine.qs.com/qs-insights-magazine-30/standing-up-to-sanctions
https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-abstract/22/2/90/11579/Why-Economic-Sanctions-Do-Not-Work?redirectedFrom=fulltext
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/targeted-sanctions/effectiveness-of-united-nations-targeted-sanctions/553973997BF1A56B75D00FD4893ECD58
Harvard publisher cancels entire journal issue on Palestine shortly before publication
As Harvard’s feud with Trump escalated, so did tensions over an ‘education and Palestine’ issue of a prestigious journal. Scholars blame the ‘Palestine exception’ to academic freedom...
"In March 2024, six months into Israel’s war in Gaza, education in the territory was decimated. Schools were closed – most had been turned into shelters – and all 12 of the strip’s universities were partially or fully destroyed.
Against that backdrop, a prestigious American education journal decided to dedicate a special issue to “education and Palestine”. The Harvard Educational Review (HER) put out a call for submissions, asking academics around the world for ideas for articles grappling with the education of Palestinians, education about Palestine and Palestinians, and related debates in schools and colleges in the US...
As Israel and Palestine have become the flashpoint for a rapidly deteriorating climate for free speech and academic freedom in the US, Harvard has already demoted two faculty members leading the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (one of whom wrote the forward for the cancelled issue), suspended a partnership with Birzeit University in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and ended a divinity school initiative dedicated to the conflict.
Scholars fear that the the capitulation of universities is hurting an entire field of study at the time when it’s most needed. But Abu El-Haj warned that the special issue’s cancellation also set a dangerous precedent for the independence of scholarship on a variety of subjects. She accused the publisher of “anticipatory compliance” and warned that “it’s not going to stop with Palestine,” she said."
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/jul/22/harvard-educational-review-palestine-issue-cancelled
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