Classrooms play a vital role in shaping young people’s understanding of peace and developing their capacity to contribute to peaceful societies. Through education, students can learn not only about the importance of peace but also about their practical responsibilities in promoting tolerance, dialogue, social harmony, and conflict resolution within their communities. Therefore, educational institutions should prioritise strengthening peace education. At the same time, it is important to examine why existing approaches to peace education do not always succeed in developing a strong culture of peace among young people. This calls for a critical re-evaluation of current strategies and the development of more effective approaches to peace teaching in classrooms.
Why Peacekeeping Missions in Africa
Africa continues to host more peacekeeping missions than any other continent. As conflict-affected countries increasingly seek support beyond the United Nations, experts emphasise the need for comprehensive reforms to strengthen peacebuilding efforts and make them more effective and sustainable.
According to a UN report of 2026, “A 2022 report released by the UN Global Fund for Education in Emergencies and Protracted Crises, Education Cannot Wait (ECW), found that since 2016, the number of crisis-impacted school-aged children grew from 75 million to 222 million; a devastating 196% increase” (Kelly, 2023). “UNMISS peacekeepers support children’s learning in Khor Malang, South Sudan.”
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The continued deployment of peacekeeping missions in Africa raises important questions about the effectiveness of existing peace education initiatives. However, the presence of peacekeeping missions should not necessarily be interpreted as evidence that peace teaching in classrooms has failed.
Instead, it highlights the need for a comprehensive approach to sustainable peace that combines peace education with good governance, social justice, economic opportunities, community dialogue, conflict prevention, and strong and effective institutions.
Therefore, the key challenge for educational institutions is to move beyond the theoretical teaching of peace and equip students with practical knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values that enable them to actively contribute to the development and maintenance of peaceful societies.
Gaps in Peace Teachings in Classrooms
Peace education is often treated as a separate or optional subject rather than being systematically integrated into disciplines such as history, civics, social studies, literature, and religious education.
Although students may be introduced to concepts such as peace, tolerance, reconciliation, and conflict resolution, they often have limited opportunities to practice these principles through dialogue, mediation, negotiation, cooperation, and non-violent problem-solving.
Furthermore, many teachers receive limited training in peace education and may lack the pedagogical skills required to facilitate sensitive discussions concerning conflict, ethnicity, religion, discrimination, inequality, and political violence.
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In countries affected by armed conflict, communal tensions, or political instability, classroom materials may also fail to adequately address issues such as trauma, reconciliation, historical grievances, and peaceful coexistence.
Peace education can be less effective when it relies primarily on generalised or externally developed examples instead of addressing students’ own experiences and local realities, including community conflict, inequality, discrimination, displacement, and social exclusion.
In addition, peace teaching does not always give sufficient attention to gender discrimination, violence against women and girls, women’s participation in peacebuilding, and the importance of gender equality in creating sustainable peace.
Another major challenge is the limited assessment of the outcomes of peace education. Schools generally evaluate students through examinations that measure knowledge and academic understanding, but have fewer effective tools to assess changes in attitudes, empathy, tolerance, cooperation, communication, and conflict-resolution abilities.
The Way Forward
Consequently, a key research and policy gap is the need to move peace education beyond simply teaching students about peace to teaching them how to practice peace in their everyday lives. Effective peace education should therefore develop measurable competencies in dialogue, empathy, tolerance, mediation, critical thinking, non-violent communication, cooperation, negotiation, and reconciliation. Such an approach can empower young people to become active participants in preventing conflict and building peaceful, inclusive, and resilient societies.
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