PHP Fatal error: Cannot use string offset as an array

Facing a weird situation with arrays.. I am using LinkedIn API to get profile info which returns data in two formats..

If user has just one educational item

educations=>education=>school-name
educations=>education=>date
...

If more than one education item

educations=>education=>0=>school-name
educations=>education=>0=>date
...
educations=>education=>1=>school-name
educations=>education=>1=>date
...

Now I am trying to make it consistent and convert

educations=>education=>school-name

to

educations=>education=>0=>school-name

But getting error in code that i believe should work

if(empty($educations['education'][0]['school-name']))
{
    $temp = array();
    $temp['education'][0]=$educations['education'];
    $educations = $temp;
}

This fails for "just one educational item", generates error on the first line for (isset,is_array and empty)

PHP Fatal error:  Cannot use string offset as an array in ...

print_r returns

[educations] => Array
    (
        [education] => Array
            (
                     [id] => 109142639
                     [school-name] => St. Fidelis College
                     [end-date] => Array
                         (
                             [year] => 2009
                         )

            )

    )