Education Under Siege: How the Houthis Plant Discrimination in the Minds of Generations

By Salsabeel Ahmed

Educational Corruption and Sectarian Discrimination

While Yemenis strive to shake off the dust of backwardness and conservatism, the Houthi militia continues its efforts to instill sectarianism in children’s minds instead of merit. Education under their control has become the starting point of an intellectual and social disaster. Silent ignorance of this corruption is as dangerous as the corruption itself.

On December 7, 2024, a hand grenade exploded inside a classroom at Al-Han bin Malik School in the Radwan district. Surprisingly, the grenade was in the possession of a fifth-grade student who had taken it from his father, a Houthi fighter. This incident is not random; it reflects how a culture of violence has penetrated the educational environment, turning schools into silent battlegrounds.

Manipulating Curricula and Erasing Identity

The militia’s goal was not just to create its own curriculum but to erase the Yemeni identity in favor of a sectarian and political one. This manipulation leaves students unaware of their history, turning them into instruments for reproducing intellectual conflict. Instead of learning values of coexistence, freedom, and justice, students are trapped in a discourse that perpetuates hatred and division.

These practices extend to altering school curricula to instill sectarian concepts and political slogans, turning religious and literary lessons into tools for glorifying the group and its history. Students are also forced to attend events linked to the "Quranic March," often under the threat of punishment or expulsion.

The Impact of Educational Discrimination on Society

Educational discrimination threatens not only Yemen’s present but also sows the seeds of division in future generations. Students are raised with the false notion that loyalty to the group is more important than loyalty to the nation, making them prone to reproducing conflicts and divisions later. Aggravating this problem is societal silence, which allows corruption to spread and turns education into a tool for brainwashing and reproducing sectarian and political conflicts.

Building a Future on Sectarianism and Corruption

What the militia is doing is not superficial change—it is an attempt to build a future based on sectarianism, corruption, and intellectual enslavement. Saving education and protecting Yemen’s future requires societal awareness, rights-based pressure, continuous documentation of incidents, and confronting them with facts, alongside the people’s revival and consciousness.

Is this a new tactic?

There is nothing new in their actions. The pattern dates back to the rule of Imam Ahmad Hamid al-Din (1948–1962), during which education was deliberately limited to keep the population submissive. Schools focused only on traditional religious sciences, while modern sciences were forbidden, and the number of formal schools was fewer than the fingers on one hand.

The Houthi Militia and Reproducing the Same Approach

Unlike Imam Ahmad, the Houthis have not completely banned education, but they have used more cunning methods to perpetuate intellectual subjugation. They altered curricula to include sectarian content emphasizing "Wilayah," glorifying group symbols, and removing parts of Yemeni history, geography, and national thought. Students were recruited through schools to attend political and military lectures, competent teachers were sidelined, and salaries were cut, resulting in the deterioration of education, which became a means of exploitation and indoctrination rather than learning.

The Outcome

Imam Ahmad prevented education to maintain power through ignorance; the Houthis repeat the approach with new methods—reshaping education into a sectarian tool that restricts generational awareness and reproduces intellectual subjugation. This is exacerbated by the lack of critical thinking among large segments of society, due to long-term deprivation of civic and national education, leaving people more vulnerable to believing Houthi propaganda centered on the concept of "Wilayah."

The Need to Protect Yemeni Education

Yemeni education today requires active protection, because each day in this contaminated educational environment reproduces conflict and deepens divisions between generations. Allowing these policies to continue unchecked intellectually and legally means handing Yemen’s future over to organized ignorance and an even greater catastrophe.

Salsabeel Ahmed – A young Yemeni writer interested in social and political issues, and intellectual reflections.

The opinions expressed in this article are solely the author’s and do not represent the views of Nisaba Media.