India is in the Top 30 List of the Countries Suffering Attacks on Education: A Study

According to a study, India is on the top 30 list of the countries where education - teachers, institutions, students – has been targeted and suffered violence. In India, near about 140 schools were attacked by militants between 2009 and 2012.

‘Education under Attack 2014’, is a study based on the countries across the globe, suffering from threats or purposeful use of force against students, teachers, academics, education trade union members as well as government officials. This study was released recently.

The study highlighted in terms of India that, most education attacks took place in states affected by a long-running insurgency led by Maoist and other left-wing armed groups such as Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, and Orissa.  It also brought attention of 'Naxalite issue’ as a major factor for attack on education.

The suffering 30 countries were segmented in the study in 3 categories as follows:  Nations with a 1,000 or more attacks are "very heavily affected", countries witnessing attacks from 500 till 999 attacks from 2009 to early 2013 are "heavily affected", while, the last category is of that countries which have seen 500 below attacks.

 India holds place in the third category with several south Asian countries - Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia, The Philippines.

In the "very heavily affected" countries, the Afghanistan and Pakistan share the same category. The Pakistani Taliban alone attacked over 830 schools.

The previous two editions of Education Under Attack - 2007 and 2010 was published by UNESCO, and the current report is issued by the group - Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA).