Iran War’s Hidden Cost: How Global Shockwaves Threaten Education for Millions of Children
The fighting in and around Iran has dominated headlines with airstrikes, naval blockades, and diplomatic brinkmanship. Yet thousands of kilometres from the battlefields, a quieter crisis is unfolding in classrooms and households across Asia, Africa and beyond. Rising fuel prices, strained government budgets and deepening household poverty linked to the conflict are forcing families to choose between keeping children in school and meeting basic survival needs. Education experts and United Nations agencies warn that the ripple effects could push millions of additional children out of school or prevent them from ever enrolling.
Unlike the visible school closures of the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact of the Iran war on education is insidious. It does not arrive as locked gates or empty desks overnight. Instead it appears as longer walks to school that families can no longer afford, higher electricity bills that shut down computer labs, delayed textbooks, and parents who reluctantly pull sons and daughters into work when income collapses. The poorest children are hit first and hardest.
The Economic Chain Reaction
The conflict has repeatedly disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical energy corridors. Even intermittent closures or the threat of them have driven up global oil and gas prices, increased shipping costs and fed inflation in import-dependent economies. Developing countries that rely heavily on imported fuel have felt the pressure most acutely. Governments already operating with limited fiscal space must divert more money to energy subsidies and security, leaving less for education budgets. Teacher salaries, school maintenance, textbook procurement and school feeding programmes all become vulnerable.
A recent United Nations Children’s Fund analysis projected that if the economic fallout continues, up to 23.4 million additional children could be pushed into poverty by the end of 2026. Roughly 80 percent of those children would live in Africa and Asia. Poverty is one of the strongest predictors of school dropout. When household budgets tighten, education is often the first expenditure cut, especially for girls and for children in rural or remote communities.
Transport costs illustrate the problem clearly. In many low-income areas, children travel by bus, boat or motorcycle to reach school. Soaring gasoline prices make those journeys more expensive for families and for teachers. In floating villages along Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake, students already face the dual challenges of climate-driven flooding and the physical risk of commuting by water. Teachers there report that some children have drowned over the years. Higher fuel costs compound an already precarious situation, leading families to keep children home on certain days so they can help with fishing or other work that brings in immediate cash.
Similar stories are emerging across Southeast Asia and South Asia. In Bangladesh, years of progress in education and poverty reduction are under threat as higher fuel and fertiliser costs strain both household incomes and government finances. A United Nations Development Programme assessment warned that pressure on public budgets could leave less money for health and education spending. In parts of Africa, rising transport and energy costs threaten school feeding programmes that provide millions of children with their only reliable daily meal. More than 466 million children worldwide receive at least one school meal a day; any disruption risks both nutrition and attendance.
Household Choices and Gendered Impacts
When money is scarce, families make painful trade-offs. A girl in a Cambodian floating village skips school for a day or two to work alongside her parents. She wants to finish her studies, yet each absence increases the chance she will fall behind and eventually leave school altogether. Education advocates note that the war is likely to force millions of children out of school and could discourage many more from enrolling in the first place. Girls face particular risks. In regions where early marriage rates are already high, economic stress can accelerate decisions to withdraw daughters from education. Past crises, including the pandemic, showed that girls who leave school are less likely to return.
Teachers and school administrators also feel the squeeze. Higher electricity prices make it harder to keep computer labs running or classrooms lit. Non-governmental organisations supporting schools in Cambodia have reported electricity costs for learning facilities rising dramatically. When schools cannot maintain basic infrastructure or pay staff consistently, quality declines even for children who remain enrolled.
Direct Damage and Regional Disruption
While the global education threat is primarily economic, the conflict has also caused direct harm to schooling inside Iran and neighbouring areas. Schools have been damaged or destroyed. One of the earliest and most devastating incidents was a strike on a girls’ elementary school in Minab that killed a large number of students and teachers. Hundreds of educational facilities across Iran sustained damage. Prolonged closures and the shift to online learning, hampered by internet restrictions and power problems, interrupted education for millions of Iranian children. In Lebanon and other parts of the wider region, schools have been repurposed as shelters for displaced families, further reducing classroom space.
These direct losses compound the longer-term problem. Learning interruptions, especially when repeated or prolonged, produce gaps that are difficult to close. Children who miss critical years of foundational literacy and numeracy carry those deficits into adulthood. Economists estimate that extended conflict-related education disruption can reduce lifetime earnings by significant margins. For countries with large youth populations, the collective loss of human capital becomes a national development constraint.
A Silent Setback to Global Goals
The timing is particularly damaging. Many countries had been slowly recovering from pandemic-related learning losses. Progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 4 — inclusive and equitable quality education — was already uneven. The Iran war’s economic aftershocks risk reversing gains in enrolment, especially among the most marginalised groups. School meal programmes, which also serve as a powerful incentive for attendance, face higher commodity and transport costs. Governments under fiscal pressure may reduce non-mandatory education spending first, even as the need for support grows.
Mental health effects add another layer. Children living with economic anxiety, family stress or exposure to conflict-related media face reduced concentration and higher rates of absenteeism. In households already living near the poverty line, the combination of higher prices and uncertainty can tip the balance against schooling.
Protecting Education Amid Crisis
The threat is not inevitable. Governments can ring-fence education budgets and prioritise school feeding even under fiscal stress. International donors and development banks can maintain flexible funding for education in emergencies rather than allowing competing crises to crowd it out. Local measures — community learning spaces, radio lessons, printed materials, and support for girls’ continued attendance — can help bridge temporary gaps. Expanding access to renewable energy for schools would reduce vulnerability to global fuel shocks.
Education organisations have called for sustained attention to these secondary effects. The conflict’s most dramatic images remain military. Its lasting damage, however, may be measured in empty desks, unfinished grades and diminished life chances for children who never set foot near a battlefield. Without deliberate action to protect learning, the economic and humanitarian aftershocks of the Iran war risk creating a generation of lost educational opportunity far beyond the Middle East.
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