Teachers in conflict zones hold the power to unite or divide—shaping futures, fostering peace, or perpetuating conflict.

• Abdul Moeed
• Sep 30, 2024
• 2 min read

Education is often deemed as the great equalizer or the balancer that helps shaping minds and bringing them from “darkness” to “light”. However, this is not true when it comes to conflict torn areas where teachers as impartial figures have a dual role to play, i.e. by being in harmony with the state as well as be the testaments of oral history for the youth. Therefore, these teachers can be deeply exclusionary, non-neutral, and negatively impact the students they are meant to uplift.

The connection that this blog unpacks is between the loop that these students in the conflict driven areas go through in tandem to the teaching pedagogy as well as the “hidden curriculum” they are exposed to. In conflict zones, teachers play a vital role as a source of stability for students but are often entangled in the conflict themselves, either due to societal divisions or an education system shaped by the conflict’s power dynamics. Such is the case we have encountered in Pakistan as well where in 2010 during the terrorism in the “FATA and Khyber Agency”, we saw education subjected to the dispersal in hands of the Mullah Leaders promoting exclusionary practices and brain-washing the ideologies of the children of the Pashtun by forcing the ideological bases of Tehreek-Taliban on them.

Moreover, the community leaders who then become teachers in these conflict-driven zones also have their biases such as ethnic, religious or social biases. Which then in-turns leave lasting impacts on students. Children marginalized by teachers due to their ethnicity, religion, or political views often internalize feelings of inferiority, alienation, or resentment toward the society that has discriminated against them. This is part in parcel uncovered by the infographic below which highlights different forms of class-room discrimination carried out especially in conflict-driven zones.

Empirical evidence of which can be found out from this study that was conducted in 2016 in Nigeria on schools in conflict driven zones, found that teachers often lowered their expectations for students from minority groups or those displaced by conflict, assuming they would underperform academically. This implicit bias widens the gap between struggling students and those who benefit from a more neutral, supportive education.

In a nutshell, while education is vital in coping and giving hope to students effected in chaos-torn areas, it is also essential to note that the dispersal of that education needs to be inclusive and eradication of those biases by the integral role played by the teachers as the delivery mechanism needs to be played rightfully. Otherwise, education can be a tool for promoting ethnic violence coupled with unequal distribution of resources, teachers as agenda setters and the biased curriculum. Henceforth, these discriminatory practices by the teachers in such areas need to be eliminated to bridge those societal divisions.

Hereby, I would like to end this blog with a powerful quote that highlights the significance of education in conflict zones,

“Education is a lifeline, helping children heal and rise above the trauma of conflict.”