Schools must be places of learning, safety and peace, lauding education as not only providing knowledge and skills but also transforming lives and driving development for people, communities and for societies.Stretching the imaginationThe top UN official encouraged the participants to imagine being a child in a classroom eager to learn, or a teacher dedicated to shaping the minds of the next generation.
“Now imagine the horrors inflicted by conflict on learning”, he said, painting a picture of schools being targeted, destroyed – or used for military purposes – and of children facing violence, exploitation, even being recruited to fight – simply because they want to study.
“And this threat is not lessening – as the horrifying events in Afghanistan are showing us so starkly”, he said. Mr. Guterres reminded that these are not numbers on a page, but thousands of individual lives and individual futures. The UN called on all countries who have not yet done so, to endorse the Safe Schools Declaration – an inter-governmental political commitment to protect students, teachers, schools, and universities, from the worst effects of armed conflict.
Endorsed by 111 States to date, the Declaration outlines concrete steps for governments to protect schools and learning. We urge Member States to go beyond their commitments under international law and put in place national policiesHe flagged the need to “hold perpetrators accountable” by making attacks on schools “unacceptable and punished” in every country and jurisdiction, the world over.