WHY EDUCATION IS A FACTOR FOR PREVENTING VIOLENT EXTREMISM

As the saying goes, "Charity begins at home " but unfortunately so does trouble. Just last month this country commemorated the 8th anniversary of the Westgate attack. Terrorism is a phenomena that does not happen in a day, no one wakes up one morning and becomes a terrorist. For  people to end up committing such heinous acts they must first have undergone a process known as RADICALIZATION.

Every terrorist was once a child beholden to parents/guardians and if lucky to teachers as well. Majority of persons recruited into terrorist groups did so while at home or school. Whatever a child becomes is informed largely by what they learn at home or school. Schools/learning institutions are places where children gain knowledge and develop attitudes that shape who they become, a safe and protected environment both at home and school ensures an almost healthy future for them. In addtion to formal basic eductaion centres,there are non formal eductaion settings scuh as  community based learning centres, faith based learning institutions i.e madrasas,monastries and koranic institutions, vocational centres, catch-up learning centres and sometimes even juvenile institutions.

Research has shown that education can be deployed and leveraged to play the role of radicalization as well as de-radicalization.As a result, governments are increasingly financing measures that counter violent extremism as part of eductaion programs. The shift towards looking at education as prevention/countering violent etxremism(P/CVE) tool is the acknowledgement that while there is no correlation between education and a terrorist activity at a group level, at an individual level many terrorists are well educated.

Summarily therefore, regardlessof whether the lack of education is a push or pull factor into radicalization, there is general consensus that education may very weell be the best tool to reach out to the young people who are at risk of radicalization.