Attacks on education internationally have surged by 40% with more than 8,556 tape-recorded incidents and 10,600 students and staff killed, hurt, abducted, detained or otherwise harmed in 2024 and 2025, according to new research.Attacks were reported in 83 nations, with the highest occurrences tape-recorded in Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Palestine and Ukraine.Ukraine experienced about 900 attacks
on schools, while Palestine saw a minimum of 2,400 attacks on students and staff, the report from the International Union to Safeguard Education from Attack (GCPEA)said.Cases of military forces or armed groups inhabiting schools or universities almost doubled (91%)from the previous 2 years, with 1,912 taped cases, according to the research study, published on Monday.Lisa Chung Bender, director of the GCPEA, said the report’s findings sounded the
alarm about the threat to education.”They are a warning that the international standards that once safeguarded kids are collapsing,”she stated. “A warning that the world is wandering towards a place where even the youngest are no longer off‑limits. And a warning that if we do not hold the line now, we may never ever get it back.”The greatest varieties of people who fell victim to attacks on education remained in Myanmar, Nigeria, Yemen and Cameroon;
where more than 1,700 students and personnel in overall were eliminated or injured.In Nigeria, more than 700 students and personnel were reportedly abducted, while in Myanmar, at least 80 trainees and personnel were killed, and about 240 were injured.Protesters call for the release of pupils and instructors kidnapped in Might from three schools in Oyo state, Nigeria, where women are often the target of attacks. Photograph: E Adegboye/EPA Prof Tejendra Pherali, teacher of education, dispute and peace at University College London, said:”It’s heartbreaking to see numbers are increasing; it is the very same pattern every year … In my view, this is more organized instead of episodic, and attacks are increasingly tactical.”He added:”Behind these numbers are the kids who no longer see schools as a location of security. It’s not just education that is lost– it’s security, futures and rely on educational
organizations.”In at least 11 countries, females and women were targeted because of their gender, the report discovered. In one example in Nigeria, on 17 November 2025, gunmen attacked a girls’ boarding school
, killing the vice-principal and kidnaping 25 female pupils.Students with impairments, who currently face substantial barriers to accessing education, were also affected. On 11 September 2025 in Lebanon, sources stated the Israeli military carried out a regulated detonation to ruin a school for kids with special needs.The usage of high dynamites, consisting of drone-borne munitions, featured often in the attacks on schools, leading to comprehensive casualties, damage to infrastructure and requiring lots of organizations to close.A woman conveniences her child in a school’s shelter throughout an air raid in Kyiv, Ukraine. Russia often attacks schools in the country with rockets and drones. Photo: R Pilipey/Getty Kieran King, from the charity War Kid UK, stated attacks on education were a serious offense of global law, such as the Geneva conventions.”The reality is that because 2010, we have actually seen a 60 %increase of kids residing in dispute, “he stated.”Over the exact same period, we have actually seen grave offenses versus children, including attacks on education, boost by 373%.
“King added that states acting without fear of sanction and aid cuts were intensifying the circumstance.”We see this weakening multilateral system and political impunity for war criminal offenses more broadly,”
he stated.”The unavoidable result of that is a documented rise in disregard for worldwide humanitarian law.” The aid cuts that we have actually seen from the US, but likewise the UK and others, [have caused substantial quantities] of the funding for assistance for humanitarian action eliminated from the sector.”The GCPEA’s Chung Bender firmly insisted
that the attacks were preventable, however.” We need states to end military use of schools, reinforce legal security and responsibility for attacks on education, and purchase monitoring, reporting and early warning systems,”she said.The figures come as the number of disputes between states has reached the highest level because the 2nd world war. Uppsala University’s dispute information programme signed up 65 conflicts during 2025– 13 of which were categorized as wars– which implies they had actually caused a minimum of 1,000 battle-related deaths in a fiscal year. This is the highest number given that 1992. The number of casualties also increased sharply during the year, amongst contenders and civilians. In all, more than 244,000 people were eliminated in organised violence in 2025, that makes it the 2nd most bloody year considering that the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.