It's not enough to just hope for peace. We need to build it, and education is the foundation.
— Sharmake, 14, Somalia, Stop the War on Children: Pathways to Peace
As the Education World Forum opens in London, peace is high on the agenda. As the first of the Forum's four themes — peace, planet, purpose, and pathways — the conference frames peace as something practical: strategies to bridge differences, strengthen social cohesion, and build more resilient communities. It is a framing that acknowledges what many across the international community already recognise - that peace is not built without education.
This opens up a wider conversation about what peace through education really means, who defines it, and what it demands of the international system. Ministers arriving in London will be engaging in this conversation together – and Save the Children hopes they will leave with commitments that match its urgency.
The evidence is clear — and has been for decades
The link between education and peace is not new. Evidence has consistently shown that education reduces the probability of conflict. Countries where more children complete secondary school have fewer conflicts. Studies show that each additional year of education reduces an individual's risk of engaging in conflict by around 20%. The Global Partnership for Education's 2024 report, Education: A Path to a Peaceful Future, draws together compelling evidence that increased educational opportunity correlates with lower rates of violence and political instability.
The mechanisms are well understood. Populations who access education are more likely to participate in democratic processes. A UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report highlighted that individuals who have completed secondary education are significantly more engaged in political processes than those with only primary schooling. Education builds the critical thinking, empathy, and capacity for dialogue that peaceful coexistence requires.
For the world to be more peaceful, I think we need to start by focusing on education. When people are educated, they can understand each other better. They can solve problems without turning to violence.
— Sharmake, 14, Somalia (Stop the War on Children: Pathways to Peace)
Education is also a peace dividend - one of the clearest and most welcome societal benefits experienced when peace is sustained. The evidence is particularly striking for girls. Educated girls are less likely to marry early, more likely to raise educated children, and — critically for peace — more likely to participate in conflict resolution and post-conflict reconstruction. Yet girls in conflict-affected settings are 90% more likely to be out of secondary school than their peers in stable countries, meaning the peace dividend of girls' education is precisely where it is hardest to realise.
What’s new and what matters now
The evidence base is solid. But knowing that education can build peace is not the same as ensuring it does — and this distinction is where the most important recent thinking has focussed. Recent conversations centre on these harder questions — and the answers should shape how we approach this agenda. When looking at operationalising the link between education and peace, are we considering power, context and the voices of those historically excluded from such conversations?
Learning converges on a clear message: education that seeks to promote peace should be rooted in the priorities and lived experience of affected communities. This includes reflecting the local context — the languages children speak, the conflicts families have lived through, the futures communities are working toward — to produce stronger outcomes on reconciliation, social cohesion and school retention.
In Save the Children's own work, we often ask children and communities about their priorities. New collaborative research this year reiterates that children and their caretakers consistently prioritise education in emergencies, and yet finds that this prioritisation does not translate into funding and provision. The international system must be configured to support children and communities’ aspirations, rather than to substitute its own.
Quality and equity are essential
With the needs at such a high level – 234 million school-aged children currently impacted by crisis - it can be easy to focus on access and scale, defaulting to what is easily measurable rather than what is transformative. But as the foundational work established, schools and other sites of learning can either build the conditions for peace or reproduce the conditions for conflict. How education is invested in is as consequential as whether it is invested in. Research finds that high inequality within education systems increases the likelihood of violent conflict, independent of overall enrolment rates — it is not just whether children are in school, but whether the system treats them equitably.
It is also the quality of education that transforms children's lives. Young Lives research in Ethiopia found that conflict had severely limited children's ability to access education, with a measurable impact on their literacy and numeracy skills. With learning at risk, continuing to measure learning outcomes during crises is therefore essential. The Holistic Assessment of Learning and Development Outcomes (HALDO) tool, developed by Save the Children, responds to this, allowing for rapid measurement of literacy, numeracy, SEL and executive functioning in crisis. The included domains of self-concept and empathy are critical for positioning children towards peace in the future.
Education also provides an opportunity to teach lifesaving knowledge and skills that children urgently need. Save the Children's Assessment of Lifesaving Learning (ALL) helps identify what children know, and what they need to learn to survive a variety of crises. This is why getting children into classrooms is only the beginning. Quality and equity, not just access, are essential in realising the full potential of education — and what makes the funding picture that follows all the more troubling.
The funding crisis and the growing gap between evidence and investment
The numbers reveal a stark reality: international aid to education is projected to fall by $3.2 billion this year — a 24% drop – at the same time that domestic education funding is under significant strain and the number of crises worldwide are growing. Humanitarian Response Plans and Refugee Response Plans were consistently leaving education sectors severely underfunded even before the new hyper-prioritisation. The 10% target for allocating humanitarian aid to education remains aspirational rather than actual.
The geographic distribution of what aid exists tells its own story. In 2021, four countries received 75% of the total aid for refugee education, despite hosting just 29% of school-aged refugee children in low-and-middle-income countries. Forgotten emergencies remain forgotten. In many contexts, families and communities are stepping in to keep education going for their children, often at personal cost at a level that exceeds both government and aid contributions. This risks compromising households’ ability to meet other basic needs. In addition, without sustained funding, and trained teachers, these efforts alone cannot guarantee meaningful learning outcomes. Communities clearly articulate this when sharing what makes education in emergencies work: reliable and present teachers, safe access routes, open schools, and affordable costs.
At the same moment that the evidence and policy frameworks are aligning around education’s role in peace, funding trends are moving in the opposite direction. The gap between what we know and what we fund is significant and concerning. But there are also opportunities: Education Cannot Wait and the Global Partnership for Education are both approaching critical replenishment moments this year. These replenishments are moments to lock in the kind of sustained, quality-focused investment that the evidence demands.
What ministers can do — starting now
Save the Children calls on ministers from donor countries to leave London with concrete commitments:
- Invest in education at a level that recognises education as a global public good and foundational to other global public goods, such as peace, health and economic prosperity.
- Fully fund the Global Partnership for Education and Education Cannot Wait at their 2026 replenishments.
- Champion and support debt and tax reforms that create fiscal space for governments in low-income countries to sustain and grow domestic investment in education.
- Shift power to national and local actors, including youth-led and child-focussed organisations, so that responses are timely, contextually appropriate, and accountable to children and communities.
For countries experiencing emergencies, Save the Children calls on their ministers to utilise the opportunity of EWF’s focus on peace to:
- Build resilient education systems through risk-specific preparedness planning, including anticipatory action, that is gender-sensitive and protects learning continuity through crises and climate shocks.
- Endorse and implement the Comprehensive School Safety Framework and Safe Schools Declaration to keep children safe in and around schools.
- Include children in designing, implementing, and evaluating the services and policies that affect their lives, ensuring safe and inclusive spaces for both girls and boys to participate.
