Strengthening communication for post-conflict educational reconstruction: a community case study of Burkina Faso's technical secretariat for education in emergency situations

By March 2023, the security crisis affecting Burkina Faso since 2015 had closed 6,334 schools and displaced more than one million students and 32,000 teachers. The Ministry of National Education (MENAPLN) created a Technical Secretariat for Education in Emergency Situations (ST-ESU) to sustain schooling. This case study asks how the ST-ESU's communication practice has supported, or constrained, the management of the crisis, and what mechanisms would be needed for the return of displaced students. Drawing on programme documentation and two phases of semi-structured interviews, fifteen in 2021 with MENAPLN communication staff, teacher unions, parent and student associations, and a technical partner, and three in 2023 with ST-ESU managers and a development partner, read through organisational and participatory communication theory, we identify four features of current practice: no ministry-wide communication strategy since 2018; communication that reacts to events rather than anticipating them; limited involvement of frontline stakeholders; and no dedicated plan for communicating with communities during return. We propose a si x -axis framework covering strategic planning, anticipatory design, stakeholder involvement, dialogic training, community-based relay communication, and monitoring. It is a preliminary, practice-derived model requiring empirical testing, intended to help the ST-ESU and comparable Sahelian institutions prepare for post-conflict educational reconstruction.