Violence in schools in Africa: prevalence, impacts, and potential solutions
Preventing violence in and around school is a moral imperative. It is also essential to reap the benefits from education and ensure children’s well-being.
Preventing violence in and around school is a moral imperative. It is also essential to reap the benefits from education and ensure children’s well-being.
School-related violence is a major challenge in many low- and middle-income countries. This is well established by surveys that - if anything - likely underestimate the prevalence of violence in schools.
Growing evidence from multiple countries in Africa documents sexual violence in schools. However, when that violence is committed by teachers it is shrouded in secrecy.
The United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative’s (UNGEI) Gender at the Centre Initiative (GCI) is an international collaboration between civil society and international organizations, aimed at promoting gender equality in education across eight pilot countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
The education sector needs to know more and do more about violence in schools. Children are exposed to staggering levels of physical, psychological, and sexual violence, perpetrated by teachers, other adults, and students.
This report presents the findings of a research project on school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) conducted by Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and the Institute for Development (IfD) in partnership with UNICEF Sierra Leone and its partners, Community Initiatives for Rural Development (
This study characterises rates of physical and sexual violence against adolescent girls and compares rates of violence against girls who are enrolled versus unenrolled in school, to contribute to an understanding of the relative risks associated with school attendance.
Ce rapport présente les résultats de l’évaluation de la violence en milieu scolaire réalisée par le Conseil Supérieur de l’Éducation, de la Formation et de la Recherche Scientifique à travers l’Instance Nationale d’Évaluation en partenariat avec l’UNICEF.
This report presents the findings and recommendations of a baseline study conducted for Our Rights, Our Lives, and Our Future (O3 plus), a UNESCO-SIDA supported project which is being implemented at the university level in Tanzania from 2021 to 2022.
In 2021-22, Education International (EI), with the technical support of Gender at Work (G@W), implemented a nine-month learning cycle to build further momentum among education unions in Africa to take action to end School-Related Gender-Based Violence (SRGBV).