Education in Divided Societies Network: the role of school collaboration in societies emerging from conflict

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Societies emerging from conflict, or conflict-affected, often find it difficult to secure peace: there may be challenges in dealing with the legacy of conflict and in finding a cohesive approach to building a better and safer future. In many of these societies school systems are also divided, or have become so, which appears to render the challenges even more difficult. The Education in Divided Societies Network (EDS-N+) project aims to use the transformative potential of collaboration in education to help address these challenges, with the foci of collaboration involving teachers within schools, teachers between schools from different communities, and teachers working across different jurisdictions.With the support of the GCRF Development Award, we will begin co-constructing a strategic network of key educational stakeholders in Northern Ireland (NI), Lebanon, Jordan, North Macedonia, Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH), and Kosovo, all of whom work on peace building through education. The network will eventually co-create and co-support projects and activities that seek to address these key challenges. It will look to connect learning and different systems of knowledge around the teaching of history and civics to inform pedagogical change and social empowerment. The EDS-N+ network will support opportunities for collaboration between local, national and international school networks to enhance the social impact of public education, and improve access to quality education for young people, especially those from lower socio-economic groups. Collaboration across the layered networks of educators will enable curriculum and pedagogical innovation to be explored in a joined-up way, providing spaces for dialogue where expertise and experience can be shared, new learning achieved, and educational and social goals pursued. The focus on the teaching of history and civics is important as these are areas of the curriculum that go to the heart of identity and social practice, while the focus on transversal competences highlights the wider educational environment and the experiential opportunities provided to students.The opportunity provided by the GCRF Development Award will be used to address a number of priorities over two stages of work. In summary, the first stage will involve the wider project group meeting in order to enhance and finalise the full stage proposal in the light of feedback from the outline stage. We will also continue the process of team-building amongst the wider project group and begin the process of expanding the group. In the second stage, two further meetings will be held in the Middle East and South East Europe to which local ODA country stakeholders will be invited. We will start to build and scale wider networks of educators and policy makers, and begin discussions with stakeholders on the key needs and priorities within and across the two regions. During this phase we will also start developing plans for the implementation phase after the final decisions on GCRF Network Plus submissions are made.