Expectations and Realities of Education in Post-conflict Sierra Leone: a reflection of society or a driver for peacebuilding?

Education is increasingly seen as a key tool for peacebuilding efforts in the post-conflict context. However, to what extent are such expectations for education being met in reality? A more fundamental question is whether education can bear such expectations. This chapter looks into the role of education in Sierra Leone in the pursuit of these questions. The approach focuses on examining adolescents' experiences and perceptions of education - including adolescents who are presently in formal schooling, who are in vocational training centres, and who are out of school- utilising interviews and participatory task-based methods. These young people are central to understanding the relationship of education to society and the state, a relationship that is suggested to have played into underlying fragility and, as a result, into the decade-long civil war. This chapter suggests that the role of education in Sierra Leone has not been reformed fundamentally in society since the conflict. The chapter problematizes approaches that understand education as an independent institution; it instead calls for a more contextualised approach that situates education in the socioeconomic reality of society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]