INTERNATIONAL DAY OF EDUCATION 2026: LEARNING FOR LASTING PEACE AND SUSTAINABLE FUTURES
Every January 24th, the world marks the International Day of Education, highlighting learning as a human right and a path to peace. In Nigeria, over 10.5 million children are out of school. COEC supports rural learners through teacher training, scholarships, trauma-informed programs, and community engagement, ensuring every child can learn, grow, and thrive. Education is peace in motion, building a future of opportunity and dignity.
Every year on January 24th, the world pauses to celebrate the International Day of Education, a day dedicated to recognizing education as both a fundamental human right and a transformative force for peace, development, and human dignity. The 2026 global theme, “Learning for Lasting Peace and Sustainable Futures,” invites reflection on how education can heal divides, build resilient communities, and create opportunities for every child and adult to thrive. This theme resonates strongly in Nigeria, where education often stands at the intersection of opportunity, conflict, and hope.
Education extends beyond classrooms and textbooks. It serves as a shield against poverty by equipping learners with skills to secure dignified livelihoods, as a bridge across communities fostering understanding and empathy, and as a seed for sustainable progress, empowering young people to innovate and lead. Yet, for many children in rural and conflict-affected areas of Nigeria, access to safe, quality learning remains a major challenge. UNESCO reports that over 10.5 million children in Nigeria are out of school, with the highest rates in the northern regions. Barriers such as insecurity, inadequate infrastructure, teacher shortages, and limited psychosocial support continue to impede learning, especially for vulnerable children and girls.
Community Outreach for Educational Change (COEC) has been working to transform these challenges into opportunities for sustainable learning. In rural communities like Samaru Kataf, COEC has supported schools through teacher training programs aimed at improving instructional quality, provision of learning materials to address shortages, and advocacy for safer school environments to ensure that students can focus on learning without fear.
Recognizing the emotional toll of conflict on learners, COEC integrates trauma-informed education into its programs. Through storytelling, group therapy, psycho-education, and individual counseling, children and adults are guided to process experiences peacefully, aligning with the principles of education for peace and social cohesion.
COEC also prioritizes scholarships for girls from vulnerable backgrounds, in partnership with organizations like the Jean F. Herskovits Foundation. Girls’ education is a proven pathway to healthier, more stable communities. These scholarships help reduce early school dropout rates and create opportunities for future leadership and economic independence, thereby fostering long-term societal impact.
The organization emphasizes community engagement as a cornerstone for sustainable education. Parents, traditional leaders, teachers, and youth are active partners in this work, contributing through town-hall dialogues on security and schooling, volunteer-led mentorship programs, and advocacy campaigns that amplify community voices in policy spaces.
To achieve lasting impact, COEC and its partners are advancing practical solutions that can scale across Nigeria and beyond. These include expanding inclusive learning spaces by building classrooms in rural areas and integrating digital tools for blended learning, enhancing teacher support through ongoing professional development and incentives for hard-to-reach communities, promoting safe and healing-centered education by embedding trauma support into school systems and training teachers in conflict-sensitive practices, and strengthening family and community engagement to address barriers to attendance and participation.
On this International Day of Education 2026, it is vital to celebrate every student dreaming of a better tomorrow and every educator and community leader working to make those dreams real. Education is peace in motion. When communities learn together, they build futures that honor dignity, possibility, and lasting peace. As we observe this day, let us continue to invest in education, advocate for equitable access, and work collectively toward a future where every child in Nigeria and beyond can thrive.
