{"id":1999,"date":"2019-01-19T21:55:12","date_gmt":"2019-01-19T18:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/?p=1999"},"modified":"2019-01-19T21:55:12","modified_gmt":"2019-01-19T18:55:12","slug":"yemeni-childrens-education-suffers-as-teachers-go-unpaid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/yemeni-childrens-education-suffers-as-teachers-go-unpaid\/","title":{"rendered":"Yemeni children\u2019s education suffers, as teachers go unpaid"},"content":{"rendered":"
Mohammad never could have imagined himself doing anything else other than teaching – a profession he practiced for 23 years. Now, he is a vegetable vendor in Sanaa.<\/strong><\/h6>\n

The Yemeni American News<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Teachers in Yemen are struggling. Their schools are being bombed. Their classrooms are being seized and turned into military barracks, and their salaries are not being paid.
\nYemenis are scrambling to find solutions to such problems.
\nThese hardships are pushing many teachers and academics to the brink of homelessness and starvation. Late in 2017, one Yemeni teacher reportedly starved to death while living in extreme poverty.
\nThese problems are especially exasperated in the Houthi controlled north of the country, where the internationally recognized government has stopped paying the wages of public sector employees after it moved the central bank from the capital Sanaa to Aden.
\nThe move left about 166,000 Yemeni teachers without pay.
\nThe war has seen 2,238 hit with 1,300 closed from the damage. Moreover, according to UNICIF, 7 percent of the schools are being used as shelters for internally displaced people.
\nThe absence of wages in the north of the country has caused many teachers to leave the profession and move to rural area to find safety and a job in agriculture.<\/p>\n

Once a teacher, now he sells Qat<\/strong>
\nMohammad is one of those who had to find a new job because of the worsening state of education in the country.
\n\u201cWe reached a point where we had nothing to eat after a year of no wages,\u201d he said. \u201cUnder this immense pressure, I had to find a new job selling vegetables. My pay was the sole source of income for me and my family.\u201d
\nMahboub, another teacher, taught Arabic in the central province of Ibb before finding a new source of income selling qat, the popular Yemeni mild morcatic.
\n\u201cI could not continue at the school because I didn\u2019t even have the means for the transportation to get there. My family barely has anything to calm our hunger,\u201d Mahboub said.
\n\u201cI had no other choice but to find something else. Now I am selling qat, and it is not great.\u201d
\nThis exodus of teachers in northern Yemen has caused an educational crisis, where even in schools that managed to remain open, there is a shortage of teachers. That\u2019s why some schools are reducing their schedule to half day.<\/p>\n

Solutions<\/strong>
\nTo address this situation, residents in rural areas are collecting donations to provide modest pay to teachers in their schools. In other areas, public schools have implemented tuitions that would be used to pay teachers.
\nAccording to UNICEF, 3.7 million Yemeni children are at risk of missing this school year if teachers are not paid. The war has already pushed at least half a million children out of school since 2015.
\nLate last year, UNICIF warned that an entire generation of children may lose their education and future.
\n\u201cFurther delay in paying teachers will likely lead to the collapse of the education sector and impact millions of children in Yemen making them vulnerable to child labor, recruitment into the fighting, trafficking, abuse and early marriage,\u201d the organization said in a statement.
\n\u201cTeachers who have not received regular salaries for two years, can no longer meet their most basic needs and have been forced to seek other ways of income to provide for their families.\u201d
\nLast year, UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore called education \u201cone of the biggest casualties of this conflict.\u201d
\nThe UN agency announced late in October that it received $70 million from Saudi Arabia and the UAE to pump into Yemen\u2019s education system and pay teachers, but it remains unclear how this money will be distributed, amid repeated teachers\u2019 strikes in the capital.
\n\u201cWe urge the warring parties to end this conflict and allow children to resume their childhood. Peace is the only solution,\u201d Fore said in a statement.
\nWhile the war\u2019s short term effects include the destruction of buildings, the long term effects may be robbing Yemen\u2019s children of knowledge, intellect and the chance of healthy development.<\/p>\n

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