Rethinking Education in Emergencies and the Role of Technology

To mark International Literacy Day on 8 September 2022 — with Saving 9, Pakistan Youth Change Advocates (PYCA), and Science Fuse — PCE convened a webinar on education in emergencies as the post-monsoon floods tore through 80 districts across five provinces, affecting more than 33 million people, causing over 1,200 deaths, and destroying 18,000+ schools. Moderated by Abdullah bin Abbas (CEO, Saving 9), the panel featured Areebah Shahid (PYCA), Arooj Khalid (Science Fuse), and Zehra Arshad (PCE).

Abdullah bin Abbas made the case for climate education in a disaster-prone country and for grounding children through psychosocial trauma; Arooj Khalid (Science Fuse, Malala Fund fellow) pressed for holding the global north accountable and for a science curriculum that actually equips students to understand climate change; and Areebah Shahid noted that this was Pakistan's third major climate disaster since 2005, the lessons from 2005 and 2010 well documented, but the systems still not ready to act on them. Zehra Arshad added that climate education is endlessly talked about and never delivered. All the speakers stressed a gendered response, since women and children (already more vulnerable) bear the disaster's heaviest costs.

On the way forward, the panel called for coordinated relief with transparency over how funds are used; context-rooted, indigenous-knowledge-informed climate-resilience solutions developed with experts; a citizens' charter of climate, work, food, education, and health demands to press into the 2023 election manifestos; disaster-risk-reduction and climate education embedded in school curricula and grassroots training; and stronger representation for Pakistan at international climate summits.