Presentation entitled 'The Role of Education in Peacebuilding: the case of Sierra Leone' given by Christine Smith Ellison at the 11th UKFIET International Conference on Education and Development, Oxford, England (13-15 September 2011) and the 56th Annual Conference of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES): The Worldwide Education Revolution, San Juan, Puerto Rico (24 April 2012).

2. The role of education
in peacebuilding:
the case of Sierra Leone

3. Education in Peacebuilding
 Global Monitoring Report

4. Sierra Leone

5. Drivers of conflict

6. Rationale 1
Education Protects Children
 ‘Quality education provides physical,
psychosocial and cognitive protection’ (INEE 2011)

7. Rapid Response Education
Programme (RREP)
 Six-month programme for those children ‘most
affected’
 Six Modules
- Literacy - Religious Moral Education
- Numeracy - Physical Health Education
- Trauma Healing - Peace and Human Rights
 13529 children completed the programme
between 1999-2002

8. Challenges
 Schools not necessarily a ‘safe place’
 Non-evidence based programming

9. Rationale 2
Training Provides Routes Other Than
Violence
‘Through disarmament and demobilization, the
process is meant to remove weapons – and war
itself – as a means of livelihood and, through the
reintegration process, to replace these livelihoods
with ones that contribute to stability, peace and
growth’ (Paulson 2009: 836)

10. DDR
 Occurred in three phases between 1998-2002
 76000 combatants disarmed

11. Challenges
 Potential for the re-creation of grievances
through unfulfilled promises
 Assumes economically driven root to conflict;
does not resolve social injustices or grievances

12. Rationale 3
Education Re-establishes Normality
 ‘Education can help children return to a sense of
stability, normality and confidence’ (INEE 2010)
 ‘Formal education has a particular symbolic
significance for many communities that helps to
restore faith in the state’ (Comic Relief 2011)

13. SABABU
 School Rehabilitation Project (2003-2007)
 Two Components:
• Achieve basic operational levels in at least
50% of schools in target districts
• Enhance institutional capacity of MEST
 Funds provided to Service Providers to contract
local builders

14. Challenges
 NGO/INGO ‘Branding’
 Return to normality; a return to the pre-conditions
for war?

15. Rationale 4: strand 1
Education Helps Make Up Lost Ground
 ‘Where the opportunity of education has been
lost due to conflict, it is not just a loss to the
individual, but a loss of social capital and the
capacity of a society to recover from the conflict’
(Smith 2010)

16. Rationale 4 : strand 2
Education Helps Make Up Lost Ground
• A more educated population is a more peaceful
one:
• ‘As educated people have more to lose
economically, they are less likely to risk death
or imprisonment by taking part in war’
(Collier 2000)
• Education can inculcate an ability to critically
analyse information, leaving people less open
to manipulation by rebel leaders.

17. Complimentary Rapid
Education for Primary Schools
(CREPS)
 ALP aimed at increasing access to the formal
system
 Allows children (age 10-14) to finish schooling in
3 years instead of 6
 Follow curriculum of core subjects most essential
to passing NPSE

18. Challenges
 Parallel/Competitive system
 Education limited to literacy/numeracy
 If changes are not made at a sustainable rate
then we are simply recreating pre-conditions of
war, this time at a faster rate and on a broader
scale

19. Rationale 5
Education Contributes to Social
Transformation
‘Cultivating an ‘‘infrastructure for peace’’ means that
we are not merely interested in ‘‘ending’’ something
that is not desired. We are oriented toward the
building of relationships that in their totality form new
patterns, processes and structures’ (Lederach 1997)
Through, for example, inclusionary reforms to the
system itself and the values it transmits as a means
of socialization, education can transform power
relations and tackle social injustices

20. Emerging Issues (EI)
 A course aimed at tackling a number of social
issues deemed important to Sierra Leone and its
development:
- Human Rights - Civics and Democracy
- Gender - Health and Environment
- Principles of Pedagogy

21. Three versions
 Required course unit for each year of three year
full time pre-service teacher training course
 Integrated into three year Distance Education
Programme
 Four-week intensive in-service training for
qualified teachers

22. Challenges
 Skewing of priorities
 Social transformation through curriculum rather
than education policy, for example,
decentralisation.

23. Conclusions
 The International Community is not
learning lessons regarding impact
 International organisations are pushing
their own agendas rather than responding
to local needs
 Is there a genuine commitment to conflict
transformation through peacebuilding?