By Sardar Khan Niazi

Education is often described as a bridge to the future. In Gaza, that bridge has been systematically broken and the cost is being paid by children. The figures are almost too stark to absorb. UNICEF says nearly 98 per cent of school buildings in Gaza are damaged, with more than 93 per cent requiring major rehabilitation or complete reconstruction. Around 81 per cent have been directly hit. Nearly 700,000 children have missed formal, in-person schooling for almost three consecutive academic years.  These are not merely statistics about buildings and classrooms. They represent millions of lost school hours, interrupted childhoods and futures placed on indefinite hold. For children, school is more than a place where mathematics, science or history are taught. It is routine. It is friendship. It is the reassuring presence of teachers. It is a space where a child can imagine becoming a doctor, engineer, teacher or writer before the demands of adult life begin to close in. In Gaza, even that ordinary experience has become extraordinary. UNICEF estimates that around 420,000 children currently have no face-to-face learning at all. The agency says roughly 60 million tons of debris obstruct Gaza’s streets, with unexploded ordnance among the hazards confronting children trying to reach learning spaces. The destruction of education therefore cannot be measured simply by counting damaged school buildings. The deeper damage is the loss of continuity. A child who misses one term can catch up. A child who misses a year may struggle. But children who spend nearly three years without a normal classroom face a very different problem: learning itself begins to erode. UNICEF warns of severe learning loss, including deterioration in foundational literacy and numeracy, while prolonged disruption increases the risk of permanent dropout.  There is also a psychological dimension. UNICEF says nearly one million children in Gaza need mental-health and psychosocial support. Education can provide something that emergency relief alone cannot: structure, social connection and a sense that tomorrow still exists.  That is why the return of children to makeshift classrooms should not be mistaken for a return to normality. Recent reporting from Gaza has shown children beginning the new academic year in tents and temporary learning spaces. Some lack basic stationery; others study in damaged surroundings or spaces without adequate protection from heat and other hazards. Yet children are returning because they still want to learn. That determination deserves more than applause. It demands action. The international community has rightly treated food, water, medicine and shelter as urgent necessities. Education must be understood in the same humanitarian framework. A generation cannot be asked to wait until everything else has been rebuilt before its right to learn is restored. UNICEF itself describes education in Gaza as an emergency and has expanded its Back to Learning program to reach hundreds of thousands of children through temporary learning centers, educational materials and psychosocial support.  But temporary classrooms are a bridge, not a destination. The eventual task will be enormous: clearing unexploded ordnance and rubble, rebuilding schools, restoring universities and libraries, supplying books and equipment, supporting teachers and helping children recover years of lost learning. It will require sustained international financing and a long-term reconstruction strategy centered on children. The question is not simply how quickly Gaza’s schools can be rebuilt. It is whether the world will allow an entire generation to emerge from war carrying an educational deficit that could shape the rest of its lives. The destruction of a classroom may take seconds. Rebuilding the opportunity it represented can take years. For Gaza’s children, those years matter. They should not have to choose between surviving a war and preparing for a future. They deserve both.