In the flood-swept valleys of Nepal, children are sleeping in the very classrooms where they used to learn. In Sudan, more than five thousand schools stand closed, leaving an entire generation waiting for peace. In Ukraine, in Gaza, in the Sahel, children caught in the world's conflicts ask for remarkably little: a classroom, a teacher, a desk.
Today, the education of 258 million school-aged children worldwide is disrupted by crises. For these children, missing out on quality education means missing out on chances in life. Meanwhile, the aid the world provides for education is projected to fall by 24 per cent this year.
In the very emergencies where education matters most, it is being neglected. This is a political failure before it is a financial one. With major consequences: When we fail to educate children in crises, we do not merely postpone their futures – we mortgage our own.
Children that are denied learning are more vulnerable to violence, recruitment into armed groups, exploitation and early marriage. Girls are often the first to be denied access to education – and the last to return to school. And the societies that lose a generation to illiteracy do not quietly disappear; they export instability, forced displacement and conflict across borders.
Excluding children from school today will deepen the security, economic and social challenges of tomorrow. In the short term, school is the most effective lifeline for children. A classroom is a place of safety, of meals, of psychosocial support, of normality in the abnormal.
Getting children back to learning within days of a disaster is the difference between trauma and recovery – and it is also the difference between hope and the loss of it. In the long term, school is the most effective development policy there is. It is essential for peace and stability.
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