Conflict in Asia and the Loss of Educational Opportunities: Developing a Comprehensive Database and Analyzing Causal Relationships

This research project aims to visualize the situation of children’s educational loss due to armed conflicts in Asian region. By integrating global conflict data including GIS information with national-level social and educational survey data, the project will geographically map the loss of educational access resulting from conflicts that have occurred in Asia since 1990. This will enable us to capture the scope of the spillover effects of conflict on education, how these effects change over time, and how they vary depending on individuals’ socioeconomic status. The ultimate goal is to build an international database on conflict and education specific to the Asian context. While large-scale conflicts have continued in recent years in Europe and the Middle East, approximately one-quarter of school-aged children affected by crises (about 57 million) are concentrated in Asia. Furthermore, about half of the children who are out of school live in just three Asian countries and five African countries, indicating a strong link between conflict and education in Asia. However, there remains a lack of comprehensive and comparable international data on conflict and education in Asia, and related research is still limited compared to other regions. In response to this gap, this research project aims to lay the foundation for future causal analysis by constructing a large-scale and empirical database on conflict and education in the Asian region.