Violent attacks on schools, pupils and staff around the world up by 40%, says study

Attacks on education globally have surged by 40% with more than 8,556 recorded incidents and 10,600 students and staff killed, injured, abducted, arrested or otherwise harmed in 2024 and 2025, according to new research.

Attacks were reported in 83 countries, with the highest incidences recorded in Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Palestine and Ukraine.

Ukraine experienced about 900 attacks on schools, while Palestine saw at least 2,400 attacks on students and staff, the report from the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA) said.

Cases of military forces or armed groups occupying schools or universities nearly doubled (91%) from the previous two years, with 1,912 recorded cases, according to the 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 global norms that once protected children are collapsing,” she said. “A warning that the world is drifting toward 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 get it back.”

The highest numbers of people who fell victim to attacks on education were in Myanmar, Nigeria, Yemen and Cameroon; where more than 1,700 students and staff in total were killed or injured.

In Nigeria, more than 700 students and staff were reportedly kidnapped, while in Myanmar, at least 80 students and staff were killed, and about 240 were injured.

Prof Tejendra Pherali, professor of education, conflict and peace at University College London, said: “It’s heartbreaking to see numbers are rising; it is the same pattern every year … In my view, this is more systematic rather than episodic, and attacks are increasingly strategic.”

He added: “Behind these numbers are the children who no longer see schools as a place of safety. It’s not just education that is lost – it’s safety, futures and trust in educational institutions.”

In at least 11 countries, women and girls were targeted because of their gender, the report found. In one example in Nigeria, on 17 November 2025, gunmen attacked a girls’ boarding school, killing the vice-principal and abducting 25 female pupils.

Students with disabilities, who already face significant obstacles to accessing education, were also affected. On 11 September 2025 in Lebanon, sources said the Israeli military carried out a controlled detonation to destroy a school for children with special needs.

The use of high explosives, including drone-borne munitions, featured frequently in the attacks on schools, resulting in extensive casualties, damage to infrastructure and forcing many institutions to close.

Kieran King, from the charity War Child UK, said attacks on education were a grave violation of international law, such as the Geneva conventions.

“The reality is that since 2010, we have seen a 60% increase of children living in conflict,” he said. “Over the same period, we’ve seen grave violations against children, including attacks on education, increase by 373%.”

King added that states acting without fear of sanction and aid cuts were worsening the situation. “We see this weakening multilateral system and political impunity for war crimes more broadly,” he said. “The inevitable result of that is a documented surge in disregard for international humanitarian law.

“The aid cuts that we’ve seen from the US, but also the UK and others, [have led to significant amounts] of the funding for support for humanitarian action removed from the sector.”

The GCPEA’s Chung Bender insisted that the attacks were preventable, however. “We need states to end military use of schools, strengthen legal protection and accountability for attacks on education, and invest in monitoring, reporting and early warning systems,” she said.

The figures come as the number of conflicts between states has reached the highest level since the second world war. Uppsala University’s conflict data programme registered 65 conflicts during 2025 – 13 of which were classified as wars – which means they had caused at least 1,000 battle-related deaths in a calendar year. This is the highest number since 1992.

The number of fatalities also increased sharply during the year, among combatants and civilians. In all, more than 244,000 people were killed in organised violence in 2025, which makes it the second most bloody year since the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.