Siraj Khan Informed Comment
On 15 June 2026, the latest Education Under Attack report was launched, presenting the most comprehensive global picture yet of violence against students, learners, educators, and schools in situations of conflict and insecurity. The findings are unambiguous in their severity. For those of us working at the intersection of education, law, policy, data and humanitarian protection, it is also a piercing call to action that can no longer be deferred.
The report also reveals a human tragedy on a global scale. From Gaza to Sudan, Ukraine, DRC, Ethiopia, Haiti and Myanmar, and countless other crises, children are paying the highest price for wars they did not start. Attacks on education may damage classrooms, but they also destroy play, friendships, routines, and the sense of possibility that every child deserves as their future is diminished and their human potential is left unrealised.
The Scale of the Crisis
The 2026 report documents at least 8,566 attacks on education during 2024 and 2025. This represents a 40% increase compared to the previous reporting period (2022-23). At least 10,600 students, teachers, and education personnel were killed, injured, abducted, or otherwise harmed. Reports of attacks were recorded across 83 countries, including 28 profiled in depth. This shows a clear failure of global governance and must be met with a robust global policy response.
Among the most alarming trends is the rise in the military use of schools and universities — cases nearly doubled compared to the prior reporting period, reaching over 1,900 incidents. According to the Explosive Weapons Monitor’s 2025 report, Insecurity Insight recorded at least 1,416 incidents of attacks in which explosive weapons damaged or destroyed education facilities or killed teachers or students in 27 countries in 2025.
The number of reported incidents in which the use of explosive weapons affected access to education increased by 64% in 2025, compared to 2024. Drone warfare has now reached schoolyards: at least 320 drone-related attacks killed or injured nearly 300 students and education personnel in the period covered. This represents the systematic targeting and instrumentalisation of education spaces in ways that constitute grave violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.
One data point deserves extra-close attention from policymakers and those committed to protecting education: apparent decreases in attacks in certain country profiles may reflect not genuine improvements but rather the erosion of monitoring and reporting mechanisms, without which violations cannot be documented. This is a lesson and a warning. When we cut funding for monitoring, we do not reduce attacks; we simply render them invisible.
What Quality Data Makes Possible
Protection of education in conflict is a humanitarian imperative as well as a legal and policy challenge that requires sustained, evidence-based engagement. The Education Under Attack 2026 report exemplifies the kind of rigorous, country-level analysis that enables meaningful protection.
High-quality data enables governments, civil society, and international actors to move from reactive response to anticipatory protection: identifying patterns, understanding perpetrators and modalities, and developing targeted legal and policy interventions where they are most needed.
Our experience in Colombia — where there have been attacks on education for decades — demonstrates what is possible when quality data is systematically gathered, analysed, and translated into concrete legal and policy action. Partnerships between national institutions and international organisations helped establish a rigorous country-level data collection process on attacks on education. That process was transformative because it produced timely, verifiable statistics, while also focusing on actionable insights. By identifying the main typologies of attacks—who was targeted, by whom, where, and through what means—the resulting evidence base enabled national stakeholders to advocate for concrete legal and policy changes.
What followed was a structured legal analysis using GCPEA’s Legislative Checklist, a publicly available diagnostic instrument that maps gaps in domestic legal frameworks that allow perpetrators of attacks on education to evade accountability.
Photo by Leonardo Basso on Unsplash
The Responsibility to Act
As the world marks the International Day to Protect Education from Attack, the Education Under Attack 2026 report presents stark realities that should alarm all education stakeholders. The report’s data and analysis should be treated as an operational instrument: a basis for legislative reform and national action planning, and for resourcing monitoring systems that cannot afford to go dark.
International Day to Protect Education from Attack is a reminder that recognition alone is not enough. The challenge now is whether governments, donors, and international institutions are willing to translate this evidence into the laws, policies, resources, and accountability mechanisms necessary to stop attacks on education and protect every learner’s right to continue learning safely.
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