Currently, 37 million children and youth do not have access to education because of crises and conflicts. Norway gives high priority to the protection of children's education in conflict areas.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to education. By adopting the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the UN member states have undertaken to work to ensure that all children and young people receive a quality education.
Under international humanitarian law, schools are to be considered civilian objects, and as such they are not military objectives and are not to be attacked in situations of armed conflict.
Despite this, there are a great many attacks on pupils, teachers and schools all over the world. According to the 2014 report Education under attack, attacks of this kind took place in at least 70 countries in the years 2009-2013. When school buildings are used for military purposes by the parties to a conflict, teachers and pupils become all the more vulnerable to attack. The military use of educational institutions has been documented in 25 armed conflicts. The countries where attacks on schools are most widespread include Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, Colombia, Somalia and Sudan.
In May 2015, Norway hosted the Oslo Conference on Safe Schools, an international conference on the protection of children and education during armed conflict. Norway led the work to develop a declaration on the protection of education in areas of armed conflict, together with Argentina, several other countries and a number of civil society organisations.
The aim of the Safe Schools Declaration is to prevent attacks on educational facilities. Countries that endorse the declaration make a commitment to use the Guidelines for protecting schools and universities from military use during armed conflict. More generally, the declaration aims to raise awareness of the fact that armed conflicts today are preventing access to safe schools for millions of children.
As of September 2017, 69 countries have endorsed The Safe Schools Declaration. Among them are several of the countries where attacks on educational institutions are most widespread. The Government will continue its efforts to gain support for the Safe Schools Declaration and to follow up the countries that have endorsed it, with a view to ensuring that the Guidelines are implemented in practice.
Norway is cooperating closely with Argentina, which was hosting the second Safe Schools Conference in March 2017.
The safe schools initiative is part of the Government's efforts to promote education for development, which have made Norway a leading actor in the international work to ensure education for all. In 2017, the Government is allocating approximately NOK 3.4 billion for aid to education.