THE CATASTROPHE OF EDUCATION IN CIVIL WAR AREAS, UGANDA

Socio-economic ramification. The over twenty year civil war in northern Uganda has devastated education. This is because students live in fear, are often targeted by the fighting forces for recruitment into the military, abduction, rape and enforced cohabitation. Teachers are killed or run away to more peaceful areas to continue with teaching, and schools are turned into military command centers or barracks. Many orphans left to fend for themselves without any viable means of survival turn impoverished and drop out of schools. The war policies of destroying educational infastrutures have had enormous results on education which makes it difficult to prepare children and youth in this region to take up their societal roles as responsible citizens. With education desolated, the development of human and social capital suffered severely. These resulted into acute shortage of competent skilled human labor and the importation of skilled human labor for post conflict rehabilitation. In brief, the destruction of education by the civil war is actually the disruption of development since education is an engine for social, economic and political development