Addressing 'serial disruption': designing and providing education for children caught up in conflict

Cullen, Jane (2011). Addressing 'serial disruption': designing and providing education for children caught up in conflict. In: UKFIET International Conference on Education and Development Global Challenges for Education: Economics, Environment and Emergency, 13-15 Sep 2011, Oxford.

Abstract

The conflict in Sri Lanka, which has recently ended, has spanned several decades and affected generations of children in the north and east of the island. This paper, based on field research carried out in 2009 just as the conflict was ending, explores the obstacles to providing quality education to children caught up in the conflict. Despite the efforts of the government and national and international NGOs to provide an alternative education, significant numbers of the children fail to progress: the reasons include a lack of priority given to education during times of conflict and a focus on short and medium term solutions which do not address the children’s long-term needs. A central argument in this paper is that it is an understanding of the effects of ‘serial disruption’ suffered by these children and their families, where they are moved frequently and at short notice from place to place, which is key to understanding this failure. The paper draws together the successful features of several initiatives from Sri Lanka for a discussion of what needs to be in place to provide quality education for children on the move, in terms of infrastructure, curriculum and teaching.

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