Preventing VAC in education: Reflections from ISPCAN 2025

The Coalition participated in a session organized by Safe to Learn, which focused on the use of data and evidence to inform policy and practice to address violence in, through and around schools. The space drew from the recently launched Center for Global Development (CGD) Data Hub for School-related Violence statistics which provides a global repository for key surveys, country presentations and case studies featuring data collection efforts by Together for Girls, as well as our Africa Hub’s regional mapping of policies on VAC in schools, all generating evidence to strengthen prevention and embed child protection within education systems.

Alongside Safe to Learn/UNICEF, Together for Girls, Center for Global Development, and the National Council for Family Affairs, Jordan, the Africa Hub’s Hope Wambi (Raising Voices) shared insights published in Stella Ayo-Adongo’s recent policy mapping report focused on the policy landscape for VACiS prevention in sub-Saharan Africa, providing a practitioner-oriented backdrop for the discussions unfolding at the Rise Up Policy Forum on addressing violence through schools. 

The discussion unpacked how far we have come, and how far we have yet to go. While many African countries have made notable progress on addressing VAC at a policy level, about half still do not have explicit policies on VAC in schools. This mirrors the global reality where according to the World Health Organization, “one in 2 children aged 6–17 years (732 million) live in countries where corporal punishment at school is not fully prohibited.” (World Health Organization, Corporal punishment and health, 2021).

If not explicit around making schools safe spaces for all children and using education systems for promoting safety for children overall, countries are missing out on the enormous opportunities schools present for VAC prevention at scale.

Participants reminded us how the education system interacts with childhoods more than any other and urged the Rise Up Policy Forum’s participants to make best use of it. Not only are schools places where diverse childhood experiences are impacted in one co-created space, but we also know that both governments and their citizens have a vested interest in how education actually unfolds in these spaces.

“22 Policy Forum sessions brought together multi-sectoral speakers and interactive formats to dig into practical in-country experience; share cost-effective, high-impact solutions; explore innovative approaches to data, practice and policy; and discuss the fundamentals of child protection system strengthening.“ 

Even as Global South participation in the conference remained relatively low, the practitioners working in these contexts have developed, refined, adapted, tested and scaled approaches that are working to prevent violence in all forms. These innovations should be seen as opportunities to build on for early gains on a mass scale.

The Rise Up Policy Forum revealed progress in Uganda where a strong opinion infrastructure around addressing VAC in school, as well as collaboration between government and civil society, is leading to the scale of the Good School Toolkit (GST) nationwide. Elsewhere at the conference, the Coalition’s Shanaaz Mathews also spoke to the evidence-backed interventions being scaled through the What Works to Prevent Violence – Impact at Scale partnership, including Breakthrough India’s Taaron Ki Toli, Right to Play’s play-based initiative in Pakistan, Projet Jeune Leader’s work in Madagascar, and ICC-T in Tanzania, as well as the GST in Uganda.

To do this effectively, the participants noted, collaboration between government and civil society is essential. Most of these interventions are not only home grown and already carefully catered for their specific national contexts, but they are being implemented by expert leaders from the Global South, including civil society and development organizations who are closest to the communities these programs impact.

Yet further adaptation of such approaches is still needed, and adaptation must be backed by government support. Experiences shared from Jorden and Uganda emphasized the need for coordination between government and civil society on scaling VAC prevention methodology. Dr. Manuella Balliet (Together for Girls), also a member of the Africa Hub and the Safe to Learn Coalition, attested to the strength of these existing home-grown solutions, and drawing from lessons they have learned in their data collection in Tanzania, emphasized the power of careful adaptation informed by quality data with focused government investment.

“To make a difference at scale, we need to work at every level of the education system. Government leadership is important, and government/civil society partnerships are crucial. Raising Voices has been pursuing such a path with an intervention that is going to scale, and the Government of Uganda has, as one of its pledges in Bogotá, committed to take the intervention to every school by 2030. We call to every African government to commit to take a school-based violence prevention intervention to every school in their country.”

Hope Wambi, VAC Prevention Coordinator, Raising Voices, and Coordinator, Africa Hub, Coalition for Good Schools

Looking ahead to how we can strengthen collaboration, government representatives at the Rise Up Policy Forum asked the panel for their advice on how governments can take this work forward, given the very real concern about limited funding for governments to implement VAC prevention programming, particularly in a time of shifting priorities and a withdrawal of overseas development assistance funding that many Global South contexts have long relied on for this work.

Panelists responded that government in fact already has strong infrastructure in place with financing behind it, in the form of the education systems they maintain through national budgets. These systems encompass key entry points like curriculum and teacher training, and are guided by ongoing opportunities like sector reviews and action plans. Panelists stressed that these ideas of VAC prevention should be widely infused into existing school structures themselves, rather than added on or as standalone projects, to ensure they are engrained in the operational culture of the school itself.

While involvement from a diverse range of Global South practitioners remained low in both the Rise Up Policy Forum and across the broader conference, long-time ISPCAN participants did note improvements from previous years in representation. This deepening of Global South perspectives is essential for a vibrant conversation that reflects the realities of education systems worldwide, each presenting a unique opportunity to make early gains in children’s lives. The Coalition was encouraged seeing the slow but steady growth in ISCPAN’s focus on opportunity for and examples from preventing VAC in schools, even as it remains lower in representation compared to parenting and family focused prevention interventions, or interventions focused more on response alone.

This highlights the work ahead of us. The movement for integrating VAC prevention in education systems still has much to do to ensure these opportunities are centered in the discussion, but we walk away from this space inspired at the opportunities ahead.