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Yemen

Yemen: Education Cluster Strategy 2016-2017 [EN/AR]

Attachments

The Crisis in Yemen

The conflict in Yemen has taken a severe toll on civilians. The escalation of the conflict beginning in March 2015 has “severely exacerbated Yemen’s pre-existing humanitarian crisis” and resulted in a drastic change of the education situation in the country. While Yemen has suffered from chronic underdevelopment and a series of localized conflicts, this level of emergency and the magnitude of its impact on children’s education as well as the schools and education facilities is beyond what the education sector was prepared to handle. Within the last three months of the school year 2014-2015, the conflict forced 3,584 schools to close, thus depriving around 1.84 million children from access to education. Displacement of families from unsafe areas to ones that are relatively safer is expected to put more pressure on the resources and limited facilities in host communities, thus increasing the need amongst them for emergency support in education. Due to the intensity of the conflict in Yemen, the country was declared an L3 emergency by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee on July 1, 2015.

Situation Overview

Education overview Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the Middle East and ranks 154 of 187 countries on the Human Development Index. Over the past 40 years, Yemen has performed relatively well in expanding formal education opportunities, but important challenges remain. Enrolment at all levels has improved substantially and illiteracy was halved from 90 per cent in 1973 to 45 per cent in 2004 (World Bank, 2010).

Yemen continues to struggle with low education indicators both in terms of access and quality. Despite a reported increase in net enrolment of over 17% within the past decade (from 62.5% in 2004 to 79% in 2013), over 1.6 million children of school age still lacked access to education, with considerable disparities across gender, social status and geographical location. Disruption of schooling, displacement, occupation and use of schools for shelter or for military purposes as well as damages to schools have been on the rise. Even prior to the most recent and fiercest wave of violence that began in March 2015, already over 500 schools had been in need of rehabilitation, reconstruction or repair to restore functionality and become safe and suitable for learning.

Yemen Education Cluster (YEC) Since the Cluster approach was formally initiated in Yemen in 2009, the country has undergone major unrest and crises that require strong coordination of education activities at both the central and the governorate and district level. UNICEF and Save the Children co- lead the Yemen Education Cluster (YEC), modelling the global co-lead arrangement, with overall support being given to the newly established Education in Emergency Committee of the MoE. Since the context of emergency in Yemen, the Education Cluster has been working closely with the MoE to track the impact of the conflict on education and ensure that measures are taken to minimize the negative consequences on children’s right to education. The overarching goal of the Education Cluster will be to ensure access to safe, equitable and quality education and to strengthen the capacity of the education system and communities to deliver a timely and evidence-based education response. The cluster will ensure strong partnership at community level through its sub-national cluster coordination mechanisms in order to reach the set targets.