Sanaa, Yemen – At 7am, Qasim, 14, rises and begins his daily struggle. He leaves his family’s rented apartment, carrying a white sack about one metre long and half a metre wide. He hopes to fill it by 11:30am.
Qasim collects plastic bottles. A sack full of these bottles can earn him up to 1,500 Yemeni riyal, about $3. Buyers gather these items to be recycled in factories.
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That money helps Qasim buy lunch for his six-member family. In the afternoon, he can be a child again, sometimes playing football with other children in the neighbourhood.
But that’s when it’s the turn of Qasim’s brother, 12-year-old Asem, to collect bottles, which he then sells at night. That helps cover the family’s dinner costs.
To Qasim and Asem, schooling is a luxury that the family cannot afford. Instead, the priority is meeting the family’s daily living expenses.
“I was studying at a government school in Sanaa. When I reached the fourth grade in 2024, I stopped going to the classroom. I wanted to help provide for my family, and my brother did the same in 2025,” Qasim tells Al Jazeera, wiping his hollow cheeks with his right hand.
“Sitting in the classroom would not feed me,” Qasim says in a low voice as he gazes at his sack in a busy neighbourhood in Sanaa.
For more than a decade, Yemen has been embroiled in a bloody conflict between the Iran-backed Houthis and the Saudi-backed government, a strife that has affected almost all population groups, including schoolchildren.
Nowadays, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that 3.2 million school-aged children in Yemen are out of school, and 1.5 million displaced children are at risk of permanent school dropout.
Although fighting on the country’s front lines has largely stopped since an April 2022 ceasefire, millions of children remain deprived of access to schooling.
‘Waste of time and cash’
Years of war have altered countless parents’ attitudes towards education. Fathers no longer feel guilty seeing their children work instead of studying.
Qasim’s father, Abdu, a 48-year-old daily wage worker, admits that he does not have regrets about seeing his children outside the classroom, collecting plastic bottles every day.
The real pain he feels, he says, is when he cannot meet the family’s basic needs.
“Seeing a hungry child is more painful than seeing a child drop out,” says Abdu.
Abdu has not left Sanaa since the war began in 2014, and he has seen how university and high school graduates have suffered.
“I sometimes work on construction sites as a guard or a digger or a porter, and I find graduates doing or seeking similar jobs,” Abdu tells Al Jazeera.
He adds, “Why should I let my children spend years at school and then come to work in such jobs? They can start working now instead.”
During the fourth Riyadh International Humanitarian Forum last year, Yemen’s Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, Waed Badhib, said that the war had inflicted heavy losses on the national economy exceeding $250bn, and led to unemployment rates rising to 35 percent.
“Parents spent lots of money on their children’s education,” Abdu notes. “Today, so many of them cannot land the jobs for which they were trained. It feels like what they did was a waste of time and cash.”
A child’s right
Widespread unemployment among graduates has led many parents to disparage the benefits of an education. But Mahmoud al-Bukari, an academic and the deputy head of the social affairs labour office in Taiz, explains that – in the long run – they could be seriously harming their children’s prospects.
“Difficult living conditions force parents to send their children to work in any job, as long as it provides for their basic needs,” al-Bukari tells Al Jazeera. “These parents may not realise that they are not solving the problem, even if it appears they are. In the long run, this means the loss of their children’s future and the creation of further social and economic problems for both individuals and society.”
Al-Bukari added that children who enter the workforce expose themselves to risks. “Regardless of the circumstances, a child’s true place is in school, not in the workforce,” he says.
It’s a point further reinforced by Afrah al-Humaiqani, a sociology professor in Aden. She points out that depriving children of education is a violation of their human rights, and forcing them to enter the workforce can create a personality plagued by anxiety and stress, as they worry about making enough money, rather than learning or playing with friends.
“Children should not be denied education; they should not be deprived of fulfilling their aspirations,” al-Humaiqani says. “A child might want to be a lawyer, a doctor, or a pilot. But when parents deny them from realising their dreams, this will hinder economic development, sustainable development, and cultural and scientific progress.”
Al-Humaiqani says that parents should not be absolved of their responsibility to their children, and should be held accountable for not allowing them to go to school. “Depriving children of their education is not a private or a family matter,” she says, “but rather an issue that affects the present and future of the nation.”
Depleted education sector
More than 2,400 schools in Yemen are either destroyed, partially damaged, or being used for other purposes, according to Save the Children.
With this number of schools out of order, the classrooms that are functioning have become overcrowded, and teachers are not able to look after each student. This leads to a decline in the quality of education, according to the children’s organisation.
The issue can’t be separated from the wider economic crisis in Yemen, brought on by the country’s war.
Public servants, including teachers, have remained unpaid for years in northern Yemen, where the Houthis dominate, and others in government-controlled territories have not received their salaries regularly.
That has forced hundreds of teachers in government schools to quit, find other work, or, at best, continue the job despite being poorly motivated.
“Teachers have been neglected in wartime, and their situation has not changed much after the 2022 truce,” Fatima Saleh, a schoolteacher in Sanaa, tells Al Jazeera. “If educators are neglected or devalued, they cannot instill the love for education among students.”
Saleh describes teachers as the “engine” of the educational process. “If this engine is dysfunctional, two problems arise: students get minimal learning benefits, and they lose interest in school.”
Once the learners lose interest in the classroom, Saleh explains, “they start seeking an alternative, and that is how dropouts have kept increasing in the country”.
She adds, “The way teachers feel, how they look, and how they behave, leaves an impact on the learner’s psychology and motivation. So, think about the feelings, appearance, and behaviour of a constantly needy teacher. They become pathetic in front of students.”
Saleh argues that teachers are role models for students, but that the war has eroded their status. “My philosophy is that a hungry, indebted teacher cannot be an inspiration for students,” she says.
Fixing the economy
Mohammed Abdu al-Samei, a journalist and researcher focused on social issues, says that the truce in Yemen has not left a tangible positive impact on education, and that the millions of school dropouts are the proof.
The calm on the front lines, according to al-Samei, cannot fix the economic issues or improve the living situation of teachers. “Without addressing economy-related problems and establishing lasting peace, more children will be deprived of access to education,” al-Samei tells Al Jazeera.
He adds that the aid activities of international organisations have shrunk in Yemen, and the required humanitarian funding has not been met.
“Aid programmes have been a lifeline for many groups in Yemen, and their decline has impacted many children’s access to education,” al-Samei says.
Meanwhile, Qasim has stopped waiting for the government or aid groups to help him return to school. That is no longer his goal.
He knows that, for now, he can get by selling the plastic bottles he collects. His next aim is to learn a trade and make a living.
“I want to be excellent in painting, carpentry, or welding,” says Qasim. “I try to learn any skill I can in this city. I will not return to the classroom.”
