Intimidation in educational institutions

The Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack elaborated a global study of attacks on schools, universities, their students and staff, in 2020 and 2021.  Education is under attack around the world, warns the study. From Afghanistan to Colombia, Mali to Thailand, “students and teachers are killed, raped, and abducted, while schools and universities are bombed, burned down, and used for military purposes”.

According to the report Education under Attack 2022:

• In 2020 and 2021, there were more than 5,000 reported attacks on education and incidents of military use of schools and universities, harming more than 9,000 students and educators in at least 85 countries. On average, six attacks on education or incidents of military use occurred each day.
• Six attacks on education or incidents of military use occurred each day.
• Explosive weapons were used in around one-fifth of all reported attacks on education during the reporting period.
• The highest incidences of attacks on education schools were in Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Myanmar, and Palestine.

The United Nations has focussed on the tragedy facing world’s children on the occasion of both the International Literacy Day on 8 September, and the International Day to Protect Education from Attack on 9 September, among several other international days.

It was estimated in 1993 that in the USA 160,000 children stayed at home each day because they were frightened to go to school. In 1989 two security guards were required to enable a philosophy professor to teach a class there.

A study conducted in 1995 showed that Israeli children hate school more than pupils in over two dozen other countries surveyed. Two studies released in 1999 may give a clue as to why: the level of violence in Israeli schools. The studies found 10.3 percent of more than 8,000 Jewish pupils surveyed had brought either a knife, gun, or stick with them to school at least once during the previous month. A study conducted by the Hebrew University's Rami Benvenisti found that of more than 15,000 pupils from 232 Israeli public schools, some 16% of elementary-school pupils, 8% of middle-school pupils and 4% of high-school pupils had skipped school at least once out of fear of an attack. About 43% of Israeli pupils admitted to bullying fellow students, and almost 16% of students had been either pushed, pinched, slapped, kicked or punched by teachers and staff.