Post conflict education – to rush or slow down?

The trickiest part in post-conflict education is deciding how to move forward. A school of thought is presently advocating for accelerated curriculums. This school of thought believes that already enough time has been wasted and education must be ‘restored’ as soon as possible. The students will forget all the other concepts and be left far behind in this rat race. The problem with this approach is that if we rush into this, we are leaving unresolved trauma. In fact, we are brushing it under the carpet. We fail to realize that these students are no longer what they used to be before the conflict. The conflict is bound to have a significant effect on the student's mental health, and not addressing it properly will only worsen everything. This could result in toxic coping mechanisms, unhealthy attachment styles, and a myriad of other problems. Another factor that it is primarily present in the global south is that issues aren’t ‘real issues.’ However, there’s a reason why post-conflict education is so tricky. Post-conflict education should progress at a very slow pace, and special attention should be paid to students’ mental health. Schools should focus on healthy outlets, which could be in the shape of therapy, arts, or any other form. Teachers should also be trained again, even the ones who taught before should attend these training. It’s essential that they understand that the students they’re dealing with are not the same, and these are extraordinary circumstances where they must proceed with caution. To sum it up, rushing through the syllabus and ensuring that minimal time is wasted and ‘parhai ka kam say kam harj ho’, is a recipe for disaster. In an attempt to save time, we end up doing lifelong damage, which is detrimental, to say the least.