The ferocity with which Islamist militants have been attacking educational institutions in Nigeria makes the efforts of their ideological comrades in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Syria pale by comparison.

A suicide bomber in the northern Nigerian town of Potiskum attacked a school assembly on Monday killing almost 50 students.

Though Boko Haram — Nigeria’s most lethal extremist group — had not publicly claimed the attack at the time of writing, the outfit has carried out similar attacks in the past.

Read: Suicide bomber kills 48 students in attack on Nigerian school

The extremist group has burnt down schools, massacred students inside campuses and, in its most audacious attack, kidnapped nearly 300 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok in April.

Not just that, the Boko Haram leadership has openly instructed followers to destroy schools.

Also read: Militants blow up rebuilt school in Bajaur

Of course, Pakistan is familiar with such patterns of violence, as local militant groups, most prominently the banned TTP, have bombed or attacked hundreds of schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata, while extremists have also threatened and attacked schools in Balochistan.

In Afghanistan, though things have improved since the Taliban’s fall in 2001, the harsh restrictions the militant group placed on girls’ education while it ruled Kabul are still fresh in the mind.

Moreover, media reports indicate that the self-styled Islamic State has closed down schools in parts of Syria it controls in order to ‘Islamise’ the curriculum.

The unfortunate truth is that these extremists are jeopardising the future of countless children in the areas they control.

If left to their devices the militants will create an entire generation of children with little knowledge or skills other than rote learning of scripture and a very narrow interpretation of Islam.

Or the youngsters will be left illiterate.

While Syria is in the midst of a bloody conflict on various fronts and Afghanistan is not very stable at the moment, there is a lot that Nigeria and Pakistan can do to stamp out militancy within their borders. Or else apart from the other effects of militancy, we may lose an entire generation to the obscurantists.

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2014