Effects of Armed-Conflict on Children’s Education:-A Study of Shelter Homes in Kathmandu District

Abstract

Children have been abducted during the time of conflict between the state and insurgents.More than 1,500 children have been directly affected, 32,550 children were abducted during the period of a decade long conflict for different purposes. Three thousand under16 year’s children are still being included as army in the Maoist fraction. Besides that many more children has been also victim of the conflict. Armed-conflict has affected a lot in education sectors in Nepal. It has terrorized the schooling environment. The present study examined the Effects of Armed Conflict on Children’s Education of the shelter homes in Kathmandu District. The respondents were the school going male children of age 12 to 18. Different shelter homes such as Save the Children–Norway,US, CWIN, and other local NGOs like CONCERN-Nepal, INSEC, CVICT and TPO Nepal of Kathmandu city have been considered the study area for the research. Each such child is the sampling unit of the study. As per the data provided by those shelter homes, the universe of the study is 200and 30samples were selected following the simple random sampling method. Thus the sample size is15percent of the universe. Data are analyzed using descriptive statistics at large. Descriptive statistical tools like frequency and percentage have been used to interpret the data. Computer programs like Statistical Package for Social Scientist(SPSS) 13.0 and Microsoft Excel 2000 is used for the analysis of data. Findings show that the children of the school-going age are also affected by the armed conflict. Since they are mentally and psychologically immature, they can’t handle the trauma efficiently. Hence, they are likely to be affected much severely than other groups.Conflict related incidents such as kidnapping, disappearance and, even, deaths have affected children very much. The reminiscence of such incidents often leaves children tense, stressed and sad. The feeling of loneliness often grips them. Therefore, they can’t feel comfortable for a long time and they need a lot of time to recover from this incident.Conflict affected the children in their academic performance as well. Due to the VII recurring feeling of terrible incidents, they are losing their interest in their study. They find study no more interesting. Instead, they want to get engaged in vocational trainings of short period. This has indicated that they are slowly losing their patience. As a result,the participation in extracurricular activities and co-curricular activities is decreasing.Conflict has even cost the academic performance of the student. On the one hand, the high frequency of the school closure has kept students at home for long time and on the other hand the conflict-hit children have not been able to cope with the stress and tension. Consequently, they lose their concentration. This, ultimately, ushers in the degrading academic performance Establishing counseling centers in each health post for displaced, other children affected by conflict, Practicing Yoga and meditation by the affected children,Rehabilitation and reintegration program for families affected by conflict, Practicing yoga and meditation by children affected from armed-conflict would help to reduce effect of conflict on children’s education. Education sector can be declared as zone of peace to ensure that no clashes between the warring sides will take place. The government, UN bodies and civil society should promote a “culture of peace” through peace education programme. The new curriculum should be made focusing on peace education and human rights. Civil society should play an important role in prevention of arms,awareness rising and in monitoring government policy. A special educational scholarship program with residential facility should be made to ensure education of children affected by conflict up to higher level.