According to the report, attacks were documented in 83 countries, with the highest rates in Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Palestine, and Ukraine.

Ukraine and Palestine Report Highest Incidents

Ukraine experienced about 900 attacks on schools, while Palestine saw at least 2,400 attacks on students and staff, the study said. The report. Published on Monday. Noted a near-doubling (91%) in cases of military forces or armed groups occupying schools or universities compared to the previous two years, with 1,912 recorded cases.

Alarm Bells for Global Education Norms

“They are a warning that the global norms that once protected children are collapsing,” said Lisa Chung Bender, director of the GCPEA; “A warning that the world is drifting toward a place where even the youngest are no longer off‑limits. And a warning that if we do not hold the line now, we may never get it back.”

The highest number of victims were recorded in Myanmar, Nigeria, Yemen, and Cameroon, where more than 1,700 students and staff were killed or injured — In Nigeria, over 700 students and staff were reportedly kidnapped, while in Myanmar, at least 80 students and staff were killed and 240 injured.

Prof Tejendra Pherali, professor of education, conflict, and peace at University College London, commented: “It’s heartbreaking to see numbers are rising; it is the same pattern every year … In my view, this is more systematic rather than episodic, and attacks are increasingly strategic.”

He added: “Behind these numbers are the children who no longer see schools as a place of safety. It’s not just education that is lost, it’s safety, futures and trust in educational institutions.”

Women and Students with Disabilities Targeted

In at least 11 countries, women and girls were targeted because of their gender. In Nigeria, on 17 November 2025, gunmen attacked a girls’ boarding school, killing the vice-principal and abducting 25 female pupils.

Students with disabilities were also affected. On 11 September 2025 in Lebanon, sources said the Israeli military carried out a controlled detonation to destroy a school for children with special needs.

The use of high explosives, including drone-borne munitions, frequently resulted in extensive casualties, damage to infrastructure, and forced many institutions to close.

Kieran King, from the charity War Child UK, said attacks on education were a grave violation of international law, such as the Geneva conventions. “The reality is that since 2010, we have seen a 60% increase of children living in conflict,” he said. “Over the same period, we’ve seen grave violations against children, including attacks on education, increase by 373%.”

King added that states acting without fear of sanction and aid cuts were worsening the situation. “We see this weakening multilateral system and political impunity for war crimes more broadly,” he said. “The inevitable result of that is a documented surge in disregard for international humanitarian law.

“The aid cuts that we’ve seen from the US, but also the UK and others, [have led to significant amounts] of the funding for support for humanitarian action removed from the sector.”

The GCPEA’s Chung Bender insisted that the attacks were preventable, however. “We need states to end military use of schools, strengthen legal protection and accountability for attacks on education, and invest in monitoring, reporting and early warning systems,” she said.

The figures come as the number of conflicts between states has reached the highest level since the second world war. Uppsala University’s conflict data programme registered 65 conflicts during 2025 – 13 of which were classified as wars – which means they had caused at least 1,000 battle-related deaths in a calendar year. This is the highest number since 1992.

In all, more than 244,000 people were killed in organised violence in 2025, which makes it the second most bloody year since the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. The number of fatalities also increased sharply during the year, among combatants and civilians.