Making the Right to Education a Reality for War Affected Children: The Northern Uganda Experience

Articles 28 and 29 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child seek to guarantee the right to education for all children and adolescents. Further, when children affected by armed conflict are asked to prioritize their own needs, education is at the top of the list. Young people equate education with a hopeful future and are eager to attend school. However, all too often, soon after they receive a school placement, those same young people discover that they find learning difficult and begin to fall away.

Part of the difficulty may lie in the ways in which violence affects cognitive capacity. From intrusive thoughts, to hyper-vigilance, to chronic pre-occupied sadness, young people who have been exposed to violence have difficulty keeping their minds on their studies. This contributes to school failure, early school leaving, and a pervasive sense of hopelessness that can contribute to a cycle of violence.

Serious international attention has been paid to insuring the right of education to children and adolescents affected by on-going conflict through the creation of schools and non-formal educational opportunities in conflict zones. However, little has been written until now on how to insure that when these children attend school they are able to overcome the specific obstacles to learning that exposure to violence creates. The Ministry of Education and Sports of the Government of Uganda has undertaken a program that attempts to do just that. This article will describe the use of theoretical literature that addresses the learning problems that war affected children face in dynamic interaction with indigenous practices and support for resilience to create an effective program to help these children succeed.