The COVID-19 pandemic has created the most severe disruption to global education systems in modern history, with millions of children worldwide being locked out of school. According to UNICEF, since the beginning of the pandemic, more than 1.6 billion children and young people have been affected by academic closures. In some countries, particularly low-income countries, formal learning and teaching has literally stopped with institutions and individuals having a very limited capacity to use remote learning.
Teaching in Afghanistan during COVID-19
Vast academic closures are an alarming threat to guaranteeing everyone’s right to education. Significant reduction in children’s access to education due to the pandemic is likely to erase decades of progress made towards universal access to education. Additionally, it also has the potential to negatively impact students’ economic prospects for the rest of their lives, primarily because of the strong association that exists between learned skills and one’s income earned later in life. The United Nations even warned that the long-term impact of disrupted education might create a ‘lost generation’ of children in Africa.
It’s much more than just a disruption to education
There is much more at stake than just not providing children with proper education. The pandemic measures have had, and will continue to have, substantial effects beyond the provision of education, simply because educational institutions offer other essential services to children and communities. For example, schools are often providers of physical and mental health services, as well as they give children access to nutritious food and therefore fight malnutrition.
The harm of academic closures will disproportionately fall on disadvantaged students, including children living in rural and conflict-affected areas, children with disabilities, refugees and children of ethnic minorities. Furthermore, children from poor families are many times less likely to have access to remote learning or to return to school post-crisis.
The closure of schools also threatens the progress made towards gender equality. The academic closures and the economic recessions brought on by the pandemic have been especially devastating for girls and young women, making them more at risk of forced marriages, teen pregnancies, and sexual assault. This might be associated with the fact that girls and women in low-income countries are 33 % less likely than men to have access to the internet. Evidence from the past also suggests that they are less likely to return to school after a disease outbreak.
How Halima is continuing her education in a refugee camp in Somalia
What should be done in the near future?
Education, a fundamental right and a global public good, must be protected. Therefore:
In the immediate future, reopening schools and keeping them open must be a priority, while of course taking every measure possible to protect the health and wellbeing of teachers and students.
Governments should avoid cutting their education budgets. Global spending on education has increased over the last 10 years, but the pandemic has significantly disrupted this upward trend. According to the World Bank, despite additional funding needs, two-thirds of low- and middle-income countries have cut their education budgets since the beginning of the pandemic. Therefore, there is a need for governments to reverse such a trend as soon as possible.
We must empower and support all teachers, for example, by considering them a priority group for access to COVID-19 vaccines. However, according to UNICEF, more than two-thirds of countries worldwide do not currently vaccinate teachers as a priority group.
We must do our best to recover learning loss. All children should receive support to catch up on lost learning and all curricula should be restructured according to the students’ needs. Moreover, in areas with high drop-out rates, there should be re-enrolment campaigns for children who have dropped out completely.
The current crisis presents a window of opportunity to reimagine and reshape our education systems. We should make use of this opportunity and try to make our education systems more resilient, equitable and sustainable. It is of crucial importance to build such systems so that they will be able to cope better with future crises.
To conclude, quality education has the power to transform lives by empowering people and helping them to overcome poverty, inequality, and discrimination. Our world needs it now more than ever before. EDUCATION MUST REMAIN A PRIORITY.
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