Recovering from Attacks on Education in Yemen

Executive Summary

Education is often one of the greatest casualties of war. In Yemen, this reality is borne out by the thousands of damaged and destroyed schools, tens of thousands of child soldiers, hundreds of thousands of teachers working without regular pay, and millions of students out of school. Mere numbers, however, are not sufficient to encapsulate the true toll. A generation of Yemenis have had their right to education and hope for a better future stripped away by airstrikes and fighting, by landmines and armed groups in and around their schools, and by beleaguered teachers presiding the best they can in over-crowded classrooms.

This policy brief examines the effects of Yemen’s armed conflict on the country’s education system, focusing in particular on the consequences of attacks on schools, students, and teachers. Drawing on key informant interviews in Taiz and consultations with experts in Sana’a city, as well as a desk review of existing research and data, this study illustrates some of Yemen’s dire education recovery and reconstruction needs. Recommendations for authorities include:

• Adopting a comprehensive plan to coordinate and finance the rebuilding of education infrastructure in conflict and gender-sensitive manners;
• Creating policies to recruit new educators and support existing teachers who have suffered the hardships of poverty and conflict;
• and respecting the civilian nature of education.

Introduction

Yemen’s conflict has seen the country’s education system come under attack in catastrophic ways. Armed groups and military forces have destroyed and damaged thousands of schools through airstrikes and ground fighting, forced many more to close, and even utilized others as recruiting grounds for children.^[1] While the scope and scale of these attacks are well documented,^[2] their ramifications and ensuing ripple effects in communities necessitate further discussion. This policy brief seeks to mainstream the protection of education in Yemen as well as the recovery of the education system and infrastructure into humanitarian and policy discussions, where they are often overshadowed by other security and economic considerations.

The case studies in this brief focus on the cities of Taiz and Sana’a in particular, an approach that shows how armed conflict has caused extensive damage to the country’s education system across governorates, with the long-term needs of – and possible policy solutions for – communities varying according to their experiences of conflict. What can and should be done in Taiz, a city on the frontlines of armed conflict and under the control of the internationally recognized government, should not be presumed to be the same as what can and should be done in Sana’a, the capital of the Houthi group’s (Ansar Allah) iron-fisted rule. Regardless of region, however, Yemen’s education system is in desperate need of greater investment and policy attention to prevent, respond, and recover from attacks on education. Only by doing so can the country restore the right to education for millions of out-of-school children, including a disproportionate percentage of young women and girls.

Methodology

This policy brief utilizes the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack’s (GCPEA) definition of an attack on education as the “intentional threat or use of force – carried out for political, military, ideological, sectarian, ethnic, religious, or criminal reasons – against students, educators, and education institutions.”^[3] The analysis here relies on a comprehensive review of existing research related to Yemen’s education system during the current conflict, as well as trends and insights from the “education in emergencies” field regarding the protection and provision of quality education in crisis situations.

Primary data for the report was gathered through 10 key informant interviews conducted in Arabic from April to June 2024 by field researchers in Taiz. Five of these interviews were held with public school teachers, and the other five with officials at the government-affiliated Ministry of Education office in Taiz. Each interviewee was asked a series of nine questions covering the effects of the armed conflict on both education infrastructure and on students, with a special focus on young women and girls, as well as their opinions on the most dire ongoing threats to education, and the greatest recovery needs. While the interviews did not constitute a sufficient representative sample of educators and policymakers to reach any conclusions in and of themselves, they provided local insights that support and contextualize existing analysis and dialogue.

Due to the security situation in Sana’a, no formal interviews were conducted there. Instead, private consultations were held with education and humanitarian professionals with past experience in the capital, who were asked similar questions to the formal interviews conducted in Taiz. The research also drew on past reports focused on Sana’a and Houthi-controlled areas. Other relevant data from the Yemen Education Cluster, Save the Children International, and GCPEA was also utilized throughout the brief.

Education and Armed Conflict in Yemen: A Brief Overview

Armed conflict began in Yemen in late 2014 when the Houthi group seized control of the capital city of Sana’a, and the ensuing violence ignited a cycle of calamity for the country’s education system.^[4] From that time up to 2022, armed groups and military forces damaged or destroyed approximately 2,900 schools, some of which were casualties of indiscriminate attacks while others were deliberately targeted for reasons including their provision of mixed-gender education or their occupation by another armed group.^[5] These attacks and wider social and economic unrest pushed millions of children out of schools, contributed to overcrowding in others, and created an environment of fear and anxiety that drove down learning outcomes. In Houthi-controlled areas, more than 170,000 teachers have had their salaries cut off since the early years of the conflict, causing many to leave the profession altogether.^[6] In areas of the country under government control, teacher shortages present a similar crisis.^[7]

While the intensity of the armed conflict has subsided since a UN-brokered truce in April 2022,^[8] ongoing violence continues to harm students and teachers and hinder the education system’s recovery. Recent incidents in Taiz and Sana’a illustrate this challenge of continuing insecurity in and around schools. In August, Yemeni media reported that 34 children were injured after a bomb detonated as Houthi officials conducted a military training course in Al-Qalis School in Bani Matar district in Sana’a governorate.^[9] In Maqbanah district in Taiz governorate, a guard at a girls’ school was shot and killed by Houthi fighters in August after he tried to deny them entry.^[10] A month later in the Al-Jund area of Taiz governorate, a US-UK airstrike killed two female students and wounded seven others.^[11]

What can start as a single attack on a school in a community can quickly metastasize into a greater environment of insecurity. After an attack, students are often displaced and forced to attend alternative schools, which may require longer commutes and greater exposure to danger. Families often keep their children, particularly young women and girls, home from school out of concern for their safety or due to economic pressure. In 2021, Save the Children found that more than 60 percent of students whose school was attacked did not return to it.^[12] While out of school, students lose access to community, feeding programs, health services, and opportunities for growth. They also face higher risks of exploitation, including early marriage and recruitment into armed groups.^[13] Over the long term, this cycle exacerbates existing societal inequalities and impedes prosperous development.

Despite a relative decrease in levels of violence^[14] and attacks on the country’s education system over the last few years, the needs of the education sector have not seen a precipitous improvement. In March 2024, Save the Children found that 4.5 million children, or two in every five, remain out of school, with more than three-quarters of the student population reporting that their sense of safety has not increased. Also fueling high drop-out rates is the dire economic state of the country, leading many families to default on school fees or withdraw their children from school to pursue work.^[15] With an exodus of teachers from the profession, volunteers and contractors have filled the gap, an innovation that has provided short-term solutions but exacerbated the need for a sustainable pipeline of well-trained and full-time teachers.^[16]

The international community has also fallen short in providing adequate funding for Yemen to mitigate the dire humanitarian circumstances and infrastructure damage. As of October 2024, the Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan was only funded at 48 percent of the total estimated required level, while in the education sector, only 55 percent of targeted beneficiaries were reached.^[17] Current levels of funding also struggle to strike a balance of flexible funding and successfully interface with local Yemeni organizations to access hard-to-reach areas and populations.^[18] Examining the case studies of Taiz and Sana’a and the ripple effects of attacks on education in these communities gives a better understanding of the remaining work to be done.

Taiz City

On the frontlines of armed conflict for much of the last decade, Taiz has seen tremendous damage inflicted on the governorate’s population, infrastructure, and education system. In 2015, Houthi fighters besieged Taiz city, the capital of the governorate, depriving the area of critical resources and aid and displacing more than 270,000 residents.^[19] Although violence has declined in recent years, Taiz consistently ranked as the most dangerous governorate in Yemen, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED).^[20] The Yemen Education Cluster estimated in 2021 that at least 369 schools across the governorate had been completely destroyed, partially destroyed, reutilized to host Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), or occupied by armed groups.^[21]

In interviews with educators in public primary and secondary schools in Taiz city, the respondents emphasized themes indicative of a city on the frontlines of armed conflict and representative of the terrible cycle of insecurity that attacks on education can precipitate. Educators emphasized the degradation of printed learning materials, heightened anxiety within the classroom, heavy damage to education infrastructure, an absence of comprehensive response and protection plans, high student dropout rates, and a depleted and burnt-out teaching workforce. The teachers noted that damaged and destroyed schools were only periodically restored, sometimes with support from UNICEF or other international organizations, and other times with financing and support provided by the local community. Several respondents highlighted the need for schools to be relocated away from the frontlines and within the vicinity of hospitals, fire departments, and major roads. All educators stressed the dire need to support teachers and recruit new ones. According to one of the teachers interviewed, an estimated 80 percent of educators in the governorate will reach retirement age by 2028.^[22]

Officials from the government-affiliated Ministry of Education office in Taiz stressed many overlapping themes and calls to action in their interviews. They noted that the period of 2016-2018 saw the highest number of reports of the occupation of schools by armed groups, but cautioned that there is still mixed reporting of soldiers present in a few schools in the governorate.^[23] This bears resemblance to data published by GCPEA, which reported 32 incidents of armed groups occupying schools in Yemen in 2023, one of the lowest numbers since the armed conflict began, with numerous incidents taking place in Taiz.^[24] Officials also reported the lack of a comprehensive strategy to finance the recovery of schools destroyed or damaged during the conflict. They noted that some interventions were self-funded by the local community, while others were supported by international organizations such as UNICEF, the British Council, and the Tawakkol Karman Foundation. All respondents again emphasized the impossible position of teachers, struggling to navigate delayed salary payments, increased poverty and conflict, and do more with less.^[25]

Sana’a City

Since Houthi forces seized control of Sana’a city in September 2014, the capital has suffered from the armed groups’ repression of civil society as well as frequent and destructive airstrikes by opposing forces. Like in other areas of their control, Houthi authorities quickly moved to arrest many opposition leaders, activists, and employees of international organizations.^[26] In the education sector, more than 170,000 educators had their salaries frozen, approximately 230 schools were damaged or destroyed by the conflict,^[27] and curricula were overhauled to meet the objectives of the group. Houthi authorities redrew lesson plans to highlight Houthi ideology, including violent jihad, and remove mention of some historically important Arab and Yemeni figures, among other changes. In one example of changes to learning materials, a unit in a grade six Arabic textbook introduced by the group glorifies a story about a child soldier whose suicide bombing changes the tide of a fictional battle.^[28] It was also estimated in 2021 that the Houthis had opened approximately 3,700 “summer schools” across 16 governorates where students are taught a similarly deeply militarized and sectarian curriculum by Houthi-selected instructors.^[29] More than 10,000 children were recruited from these schools to join the ranks of the group.^[30] All in all, Houthi interference in – and exploitation of – Sana’a city’s education system presents a daunting challenge for protecting and rehabilitating education infrastructure in the areas of their control.

While no formal interviews were conducted in Sana’a, local experts consulted for this policy brief reiterated the disturbing changes in curricula, extortion of teachers by Houthi forces,^[31] and militarization and recruitment of children through the summer schools.^[32] Although the Houthis signed an action plan with the UN in April 2022 to end the recruitment of children,^[33] Human Rights Watch found that this practice continued through 2024.^[34] Given the myriad of ways the Houthi group continues to militarize education, target humanitarian aid workers, and defy the international community, protecting and rebuilding education in the areas of their control will be an extremely complex endeavor. As neither the approach of military action combined with diplomatic isolation nor quiet diplomacy has produced positive change in Houthi-controlled areas, policymakers must find a new way of leveraging the peace process, communicating clear red lines, and furthering accountability when education continues to be attacked.^[35] This all suggests that for now, government authorities, humanitarian organizations, and the international community may be best placed to prioritize the protection of education in Houthi-controlled areas before greenlighting the implementation of new funding and programs that will potentially be exploited by the group.

Recommendations

In order to combat and remedy the calamitous cycle wrought by attacks on education in Yemen, a number of policy reforms are urgently needed. The following four recommendations stem from the analysis in the brief, including the insights of those interviewed and consulted for this research, but are naturally not entirely comprehensive of the landscape of educational (and humanitarian) needs across the country.

1. Yemeni government authorities should launch a comprehensive plan for coordinating and financing the recovery and rehabilitation of education infrastructure damaged by the war. As the teachers interviewed and policymakers noted, such efforts to date have been reliant upon interventions from international organizations,^[36] Yemeni charities, and affected communities. A more standardized and expansive policy is needed – one which would ideally embrace the cooperation of education ministry officials and teachers across governorates to target the communities most in need, which are often those hardest to reach.

With international humanitarian and development funding for education decreasing, the government should expand the nexus for funding this recovery and reconstruction program into other development initiatives, especially climate finance. Funding for education in emergency initiatives is often deprioritized given the perception that they are not as essential for lifesaving as other programs such as those focused on nutrition and health. However, the ability to attend a functioning school is lifesaving, not only from the value of the education it provides, but also for connections to the community and access to health, safety, and nutrition programs that take place within the context of education.^[37]

In seeking international funding, Yemeni government authorities should affirm the recovery of education as a wider humanitarian intervention so that it is competitive amidst a dwindling global pool of resources. It may also prove useful to frame the program as climate-sensitive, highlighting the ways in which climate change risks such as droughts and floods fuel school dropouts across the country.^[38] As many international organizations, including the World Bank, are expanding climate-related education funding, this approach would further solidify the program’s competitiveness for international support.

2. Yemeni government authorities should ensure that schools are not merely restored and reconstructed but rebuilt in a manner that is conflict and gender sensitive. As schools are rebuilt, tools including Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can help identify optimal locations such that they are located away from hotspots of conflict and near major roads and hospitals. The importance of this consideration, which will help ensure both the accessibility of schools and the safety of students and educators, was raised by teachers in Taiz in their interview responses. Furthermore, the reconstruction of schools should take into account the ways in which safe and inclusive learning spaces can improve enrollment and retention rates, particularly for young women and girls. For example, past research and programming in Yemen has demonstrated that young women and girls are more likely to stay in school when the facilities include dedicated recreation areas and bathrooms for both genders.^[39]
3. Governing authorities should seek to rehabilitate the status of the teacher in areas under their control and expand programs to recruit the next generation of educators. The exodus of teachers from the profession due to conflict-related insecurity, lack of timely salary payments, and retirement is a main precipitating factor in the country’s education crisis. Among the teachers who have remained in their posts, many have needed to secure second jobs to survive. While over 170,000 educators in Houthi-controlled territories have not received regular salaries since 2016,^[40] the average monthly salary of 70,000 rials (currently about US$30) for teachers in government-controlled areas.^[41]

Governing authorities must provide teachers with a living wage and should additionally support their working conditions by ensuring that rebuilt and rehabilitated schools have facilities to meet their needs including access to clean water and dedicated bathrooms. Authorities should further invest in teacher colleges and continuing education centers to both recruit new teachers and bring those driven out of the system back into it. Teachers interviewed in Taiz could not have sounded a louder alarm that the shortage of educators will only worsen in the coming years unless immediate action is taken.

Remedying the crises teachers face will naturally look different throughout the divided country. In Houthi-controlled areas, the international peace process should be leveraged to ensure that dispensing teacher salaries and ending the militarization of the education sector remain on the agenda.^[42]

4. All parties must respect the civilian nature of education by refraining from using schools for military purposes and taking additional precautions when conducting military operations in the vicinity of education facilities. Despite the relative reduction in violence since April 2022, GCPEA recorded that at least 55 schools and universities were attacked by armed forces, while almost 100 were occupied by military groups in 2022-2023.^[43] Yemeni government authorities endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration in 2017, and in doing so committed to following a series of best practices for protecting education in war.^[44] In 2021, the National Manual for the Safety and Security of Schools was created as the result of a high-level national initiative between the divided Ministries of Education to safeguard schools through agreed-upon principles related to protection and emergency preparedness planning.^[45] However, ongoing attacks and high levels of students reporting feeling unsafe at school indicate that further action and implementation are required. Governing authorities should consider creating regional Safe Schools Declaration committees composed of teachers, education ministry officials, and other relevant policymakers to evaluate progress and further strengthen norms around protecting education across the country. When attacks do occur, they should be met with accountability for the perpetrators and assistance for victims.

This policy brief was produced as part of the Yemen Peace Forum, a Sana’a Center initiative that seeks to empower the next generation of Yemeni youth and civil society activists to engage in critical national issues.