The quantitative impact of conflict on education

Ruth Naylor & Amir Jones

1. How conflict impacts on education

Targeted attacks on education

Direct damage to education

“Collateral damage”

Targeted attacks

Indirect damage

Direct damage to education

Targeted attacks

Forced displacementPublic health

Household labourReduced returns to education

Reduced expenditure (public & private)Reduced public capacity

Total impact

2. The human costs: out-of-school children

The quantitative impact of conflict on education

Key global statistics:

● 57 million out of school children (OOSC)

globally (primary school aged)

● 28.5 million of these live in conflict affected

countries (UNESCO)

● 2-3 million IDP and refugee children out of

school (primary school aged)

● Hundreds of thousands of students have

their education interrupted by targeted attacks

EMIS data, primary school aged

Survey data,ages 7-14

Country totals(33 countries)

39 million 90 million

Country totals, with sub-national estimates for India, Indonesia, Nigeria and Pakistan

28.5 million(UNESCO, 2013)

47.5 million

OOSC living in conflict-affected areas (sub-national estimates for all 33 countries)

11 million 24 million

Number of OOSC living in conflict affected areas

Sources: UIS and EPDC

The quantitative impact of conflict on education

Estimating OOSC due to conflictMulti country regression studies

• Shields and Paulson (2014)• Lai and Thyne (2007)

Compare enrolment rates and trends in conflict and

non conflict regions • NAR in NE Nigeria is 49%, compared to over 90% in the

south

Ask why their children are out of school• 16% of parents in S Kivu cited “fear of crime and

conflict” as the primary cause of dropout

Compare enrolment trends with conflict history• UIS (2010)• EPDC (2010)

19901991

19921993

19941995

19961997

19981999

20002001

20022003

20042005

20062007

20082009

20102011

20122013

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

4500

5000

DRC Battle deaths (UCDP)

DRC Out-of-school rate for children of pri-mary school age (%)

SSA Out-of-school rate for children of pri-mary school age (%)

DRC OOSC rates and conflict history

Sources: UCDP, UIS

Country Estimated number of OOSC (UIS definition)2011

Approximate proportion of OOSC that can be attributed to conflict

Approximate number of OOSC in 2011/12 due to conflict

DRC 3.5 million 10% to 20% 0.3 to 0.7 million

Nigeria 10.5 million <5% <0.5 million (2011 data)

Pakistan 5.4 million 15% to 50% 0.8 to 2.7 million

Total 19.4 million 5% to 20% (of total)

1.1 to 3.9 million

Estimates of OOSC due to conflict

3. The financial costs

The financial costs of conflict to education

Direct costs

• Cost of replacing destroyed and damaged infrastructure

• Cost of replacing damaged and looted equipment

• Cost of replacing lost teaching force

• Cost due to lost teaching time

Direct costs of targeted attacks, 2009-2012US$ million

DRC 26

Nigeria 6

Pakistan 101

Targeted attacks

The financial costs of conflict to education

Scale of “collateral damage” is far greater than cases documented in Education under Attack

• Cost of reconstructing primary schools destroyed by bombing 2003-2004 in Iraq ≈ $230m

• Cost of replacing damaged school infrastructure and equipment in Syria ≈ $1 to $3bn (Ndaruhutse & West 2015).

• During the Rwandan genocide, more than two-thirds of the teaching force were either killed or fled (Buckland 2005).

Economic impact of conflict through missed education

• Reduced enrolment and educational attainment lead to reduced GDP in long term (Burnett et al, 2013)

Estimates for Pakistan:• Long term cost of children out of school = $3bn• 1 year reduction in average education attainment

→13% reduction in per capita income

• We used our estimates of impact of conflict on education to estimate the cost of the long term economic costs of lost education due to conflict.

The financial costs of conflict to education

Summary of financial costs 2009-2012

DRC Nigeria PakistanDirect cost to the education sector of targeted attacks, 2009-2012

$26m $5.7m $101m

Long-term impact on national income of current OOSC due to conflict

$53-107m n/a $440m-1.5bn

Long-term impact on national income of reduced educational attainment due to conflict

$470m n/a $2.9bn

Long-term impact of direct and

indirect costs

Total direct costs

Direct costs from

targeted attacks

EUA evidence

Indirect costs

Collateral damage