![By Julien Harneis from Sana'a, Yemen (Bombed school, still working) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://acc2021.ei-ie.org/image/fdb3e.jpg/lead.jpg)
With more than 1,700 schools already closed due to damage from armed conflict, the country’s teachers have gone on strike, desperate to be paid after one year, only adding to the country’s education woes.
Having not received a salary since October 2016, teachers decided to take action as a last resort in an effort to get paid.
The situation is affecting teachers who live and work in regions controlled by the Houthi movement.
Yemen is home to about 166,000 teachers, who are not alone in their struggle to be paid. The country’s public sector workers in the same regions have also been unpaid for a year.
In some areas, up to 90 percent of teachers have gone on strike in protest of either not getting paid or being paid too little. Many teacher received roughly $160 USD per month before salaries were suspended.
The Yemen Teachers Syndicate is an affiliate of Education International (EI).
Making matters worse, the government is now asking for unqualified volunteers to fill in for the striking teachers.
At least two million children are not in school.
In related news, the government recently became the 70th country to endorse the Safe Schools Declaration in advance of UN Security Council Debate on Children and Armed Conflict.