For the average teacher, war is a remote event that is happening somewhere else. It is news that can be read and discarded.
But for Shakoor Muhammad, MEd ’98, the experience of working in conflict situations is a daily reality. For the past ten years, Mr Muhammad has chosen to organise emergency education programmes for children whose schooling has been disrupted by war, experiencing first-hand the conflict in Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan.
The alumnus from the Institute
Shakoor Muhammad (bottom left) with students in Nigeria.
for Educational Development (IED) is currently working in Nigeria’s north-eastern provinces where schools, especially those with female students, are being targeted by the Boko Haram militant group.
Under the Safe Schools Initiative, run by UNICEF Nigeria, he and his colleagues aim to give children the opportunity to continue learning despite the challenging circumstances around them, using a combination of innovative approaches alongside tried-and-tested methods.
UNICEF estimates that violent conflict has disrupted the education of 27 million children around the world and targets under the Sustainable Development Goal 4, on Quality Education, which calls for special measures to ensure that children in vulnerable situations can access education.
Mr Muhammad states that the response during such education emergencies consists of three phases.
The first is the immediate emergency response phase which involves re-establishing access to education opportunities for displaced and out-of-school children. In Nigeria, this phase will see him and other education specialists reach out to children living in 42 temporary camps.
“This a short-term response that deals with the logistical aspect of the problem,” says Mr Muhammad. “This comes in the form of constructing temporary learning spaces, providing tents, and the provision of other learning materials to get basic instruction started and to bring a sense of normalcy in the lives of the affected children.” The first phase also includes steps to build teaching skills, to provide psychosocial support and conflict risk reduction services, as well as initiatives to strengthen school-based management committees.
The second stage, the recovery phase, focuses on the rehabilitation of damaged schools, the continuation of programmes to train teachers, and efforts to relocate students back to their communities.
The final stage is the most challenging, says Mr Muhammad, as it involves initiatives to strengthen the system that was in place before the conflict.
“As an education specialist my role is to open up opportunities to bring local stakeholders together and to involve them in the process. This means getting the local community, the education ministry, and other NGOs that are operating in the region to work together in their different capacities.
“Currently, I’m working with the ministry of education [in Nigeria] and the local education boards to accomplish this. The other goal is to increase the enrollment in these schools, especially of girls, which is particularly low at the moment.”
Mr Muhammad credits his time at the IED for giving him the chance to learn how to work with people from diverse backgrounds.
“I can honestly say that my experience at IED transformed me completely…there were people from East Africa, Central Asia, and different cities of Pakistan [at the IED], which was new to me as I had never had that exposure before.”
The experience helped Mr Muhammad learn how to work with people from around the world, and to explore how to build partnerships between stakeholders working to achieve a common goal.
Bringing local stakeholders together to work on expanding access to education is a vital part of UNICEF’s initiative in Nigeria.
Such collaborations enable the programme to reach regions that other international organisations, and even local education stakeholders, cannot because of security concerns, Mr Muhammad explains.
There is another advantage of having local parties involved in the effort as they can prevent misunderstandings caused by language and cultural barriers from arising, he adds.
It may be an unusual career choice but Mr Muhammad is a teacher who is committed to making a difference.