"Over a million children in Burkina Faso are currently affected by school closures with 6,134 academic institutions shut as of February 2023, an increase of over 40 per cent since the end of the last school year. Nearly one out of four schools country-wide are now out of service due to rampant insecurity and violence, which has forced close to two million people into displacement," the NRC said in a statement.
Hassane Hamadou, NRC’s director in Burkina Faso, said that only around 25% of those who had been forced to leave school had the opportunity to continue their education. The rest is left behind and has no access to education and normal childhood experience, he said.
"The longer this situation drags on, the graver it becomes, the harder it will be to reverse this trend and protect their futures. The authorities in Burkina Faso as well as humanitarian and development organisations must urgently renew their efforts to stop this educational hemorrhage," Hamadou said.
Over 31,000 teachers have been affected by the crisis, with only 6,300 of them working at schools for internally displaced children now, according to the NRC.
Burkina Faso, located in the Sahel region of Africa, is one of the world’s poorest countries. Since 2015, it has been fighting groups of radical jihadists on its territory.