Post-War Sustainability-Driven Education for Elementary School Buildings in Tigray

By Professor Desta, Asayehgn
Sarlo Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Development
Tigrai Online 4/9/2024

Introduction

The Safe Schools Declaration of 2015 is an inter-governmental political agreement that was signed by several countries to protect the schooling of the school-aged population in armed conflicts (Cerimovic, May 11, 2019). Briefly stated the Safe School Declaration states that an attack on schools and hospitals during a conflict embodies a severe violation of human beings. Yet, despite the protection of children under the law, it was reported by the Union of International Association (UIA) that in 2001 alone, about 300,000 child soldiers were either conscripted by governments or forcibly recruited by rebels and found operating in 41 countries –a third of which were found in Africa (24 November 2023).  

The increasing number of schools and hospitals that were attacked by militant groups has already proven to be devastating and carries grave risks for children to operate productively. For example, during the Bosnia War (1992-1995), many schools were demolished, and many school-aged children were left unschooled. During the armed conflict in Afghanistan (2001-2021), over 100 schools suffered some type of military attack. When the civil war in Cameroon erupted in 2017, the bloody war claimed over 700,000 schoolchildren. The Syrian war which started on 15 March 2011 as part of the wider 2011 Arab Spring protests, has left several children to be deprived of their education and the survivors are enduring physical injuries and suffering from very deep psychological scars. For example, several Yemeni students who attended schools were groomed to join the ranks of one or another of the country’s warring factions (Nagi, November 2021). During the civilian war in Sierra Leone (from March 1991 to 18 January 2002), the rebel groups from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) abducted or dragged more than 5,400 children to join them into submission (UIA, 24, November 2023). In the Ukrainian war crisis that started in 2021, thus far, more than 155 school facilities and infrastructures have been wrecked.     

During the Ethio-Eritrean war against Tigray that occurred from November 2020 to June 2020 and August 2022 to November 2022; schooling in Tigray was set back decades because the existing school buildings were either demolished in the crossfire or were used for military use.  As narrated by Van Niekerk (Feb 2023), the aerial bombardment of schools, hospitals, and historical places, along with the blockade of Tigray, contributed to the death of thousands of children. About 90% of all 2,221 Elementary and 271 high schools in Tigray were destroyed, looted, or damaged. Overall, between 1.5 to 2.4 million students in grades K-12 in Tigray were out of school (April 16, 2023).  According to the study conducted by the Tigray Education Bureau in 2021, excluding schools in Western, in parts of the Northern Tigray that Eritrea and Amhara occupied, 2,054 primary, and secondary public schools and two teachers’ training colleges, 88.3% of the classrooms were severely damaged. Excluding vandalism and destruction, the damage included theft, tearing down, and burning of, a) 96.5% of the student's desks, b) 95.9 of the blackboards, c) 63.5% of students’ textbooks, d) 85.1% of computers, e) 79.9% of plasma screens, e) 84.5 of science laboratory equipment, f) 92.5% of educational models, and g) more than 48% of the school toilets (Anonymous, April 18, 2023). Given the magnitude of the war atrocities, the World Health Organization (WHO) describes the situation in Tigray as “the worst humanitarian crisis” ever recorded in history (Sew, August 14, 2022).

Introduction

During the besieged and ethnic cleansing period, children’s education in Tigray has been disrupted and many children have lost many years of schooling.  As a result of the war, many school-aged children are left emotionally fraught. Many school-aged children in the Tigray part of Ethiopia, are now undergoing painful trauma. As eloquently depicted by Atsbeha (March 07, 2023), because of the protracted war that occurred between Ethio=Eritra and Tigray, many children have gone through horrible trauma – showing heightened aggression and at times, getting involved in conflicts with their parents, siblings, and teachers.  Given these horrible traumatic experiences, the future productivity of school-age Tigrayan children remains adversely affected.  

After two years of unimaginable fighting, both the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front negotiators finally agreed to sign a peace deal in Pretoria, South Africa (hereafter the Pretoria Agreement), on November 2, 2022 (Wight, November 25, 2022). The Pretoria Agreement of November 2022 might have lessened active fighting, but it has not automatically led to the end of hostility. The aftermath of the war period in Tigray is pursued by a period of violent transition. It is sad to notice that for about sixteen months, more than fifty subdistricts of Tigray have been lingering skirmishes and human suffering.

Thus, the purpose of this paper is to propose a strategic conceptual framework tailored to initiate sustainable principles for constructing school buildings that take into consideration the synergistic relationship between economic, social, and environmental aspects of sustainability and provide for the fulfillment of the needs of the learners while protecting the natural environment. The central question of the study is what kind of sustainability-driven school buildings could be initiated to make learning environments in Tigray relatively comfortable and improve the well-being of the war-impacted children and school employees?

Conceptual Framework for Operationally Implementing Sustainability School Buildings

The school buildings in most pre-war-torn countries were not built to address sustainability. They consumed resources and failed to address negative environmental externalities. In addition, the school buildings that were destroyed or turned into shelters for displaced people during the war period are very costly to renovate or even retrofit them. Thus, due to their age, the old school buildings need to be refurbished to make them sustainable.

Leaving a profound paradigm shift in the mindset of building architects, designers, local builders, and health specialists to interpret the curriculum in terms of building new sustainable-type schools, the war-affected areas need to use local resources that are eco-friendly and transit from a linear to a continuous-cycle system approach (Westerlo, et.al, 27 Sep 2012).

In other words, if war-torn areas have the desire to make positive changes for the future and become engines of change for the self-renewal process, the rundown educational institutions or hastily built temporary buildings need to be redesigned to achieve the hallmark of sustainability. The framework that is worth suggesting addressing sustainable school buildings in developing countries needs to:  1) deploy local materials, 2) apply resource conservation, 3) employ cost-effectiveness (minimize cost and with the least waste), and 4) generate human adaptation, and 5) maximization of added value to the surroundings (Akadiri, P, Chinyio E. and Olomolaiye. O. 4 May 2012).

In simple terms, the conceptual framework initiated for operationally building sustainable school buildings needs to be designed in a way that uses available resources efficiently and is responsible for balancing environmental, societal, and economic impacts to meet the design of current and future generations.

To serve as the learning space for the war-affected occupants in the neighborhood, sustainable school buildings need to address; 1) resource conservation (using low-cost locally sourced materials such as clay bricks, and salvage materials such as resource conservation, durability, recyclability, and low maintenance with minimal impact on the environment from which they originate), 2) focus on utilizing sunlight energy, 3) use rainwater harvesting, and 4) empower the local community to design and implement and the further residence of sustainability in the local community.  

Introduction

Summary and Conclusion:

To minimize the current rate of environmental deterioration and attain sustainability in school buildings, the war-affected countries mainly need to redesign and introduce environmental-based building units. To serve as the base or foundation of the school buildings, locally sourced materials such as quarried rock unbreakable stones, recycled materials, and rapidly renewable materials and vegetative roofs need to be redesigned. That is, the walls need to be composed of soil-stabilized bricks or large solid pieces of blocks that have screened windows vital to facilitate natural sunlight lighting and provide healthier air quality while allowing air flow to remain continuous.

High roofs of the building schools must be built with local timber and covered with shaded thin surface stones to mitigate the risk of flooding and adapt to climatic changes. Edible vegetative roofs could be designed to grow edible fruits and vegetables. In addition to controlling herbicides and pesticides, green vegetative roofs reduce heat. Installing foot containers is cost-effective – they can be used to store rainwater, delay peak flow, and minimize the risk of floods. More specifically, in addition to being unused spaces, using a container foot garden is cost-effective because it requires less water, soil, and maintenance, and is more lightweight. It allows for easier distribution of weight on the roof and doesn’t exceed the structural load capacity of the building, M.  (Thai, 2012).

In a nutshell, to adhere to sustainability, the current educational system in Tigray must change profoundly. Instead of utilizing the school buildings mainly tailored to be sanctuaries for the three R’s, learning by listening needs to be consolidated with learning by doing (Ogata, December 2008).  

To further beautify and contribute to the rejuvenation of the ecological restoration of the school campus, horticulture garden vegetables–tomatoes, spinach, carrots, lettuce, fruits, flowers, and shaded plants need to grow using a rainwater harvesting system. This will give first-hand experiences to the students working in the garden.    

Though beyond the scope of this study, it needs to be stressed that simply building sustainable schools is not enough to address the root cause of the existing educational crisis in war-torn countries. Schools need to redesign and introduce a thorough sustainable unit in their curriculum and expand their offerings to remain germane to the needs of their local region. In other words, sustainable education needs to be redesigned in war-affected regions so that students can perform hands-on environmental services to their communities by combining all academic subjects in conjunction with the needs of their local areas (Kofi and Desta, 2008). As a caveat, it is worth mentioning that for several students who attend classes with empty stomachs, funds could be solicited from philanthropic agencies to provide supplementary balanced breakfasts.  

To provide more dynamism to sustainable school buildings, teachers need to be retrained and deliver respite programs. That is, teachers who have experienced war periods need to be retained so that they serve as catalysts to transform sustainable schools. Offering sustainable-based educational lessons through radio programs could serve as additional valuable resources for teachers. Using mobile bus services, psychosocial therapy could be used to deliver relief to those students and teachers still suffering from their traumatic war experiences. In short, if war-torn areas desire to make positive changes for the future and become engines of change for the self-renewal process, educational institutions need to be redesigned to achieve the hallmark of sustainability.

Introduction

References:

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