Report: ‘Safe Schools’ and Restoring Education Can Help the Fight Against Ebola

Picture: UNICEF/Jallanzo

Nearly five million children are out of school in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone due to school closures caused by Ebola. Last week, the Global Business Coalition for Education, in partnership with A World at School, released a report on the crisis, calling on education to be maintained and for ‘safe schools’ to be reopened to support efforts against the disease.

The report Ebola Emergency: Restoring Education, Creating Safe Schools and Preventing Long-term Crisis calls for action to provide emergency education until schools are reopened, plans to reopen ‘safe schools’ to help fight Ebola and protect children, and investment in teacher training on Ebola. Underlining the urgency of this crisis is the fact the children are 50 per cent less likely to go back to school if they’re out for over a year.

Writing for the Education for All blog of the Global Partnership for Education, Sarah Brown said:

Education and literacy can help the most vulnerable to avoid succumbing to illnesses and disease. 

Ebola is a case in point. Education can help to ensure that children get potentially lifesaving information about preventing the spread of Ebola and accessing health services.

If we are serious about putting the lives of children first, then investing in the Ebola public health response without investing in education is a non-starter.

The report was also the focus of the BBC article ‘Ebola crisis: Appeal to reopen schools’.

Click here to read the full report.