A thought provoking opinion piece published in Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald discussing how millions of children around the world may never return to school after the lockdowns due to the Corona pandemic.
About 1.5 billion young learners – 90 per cent of the world’s schoolchildren – are or have been locked out of school. About 810 million are in low and middle-income countries, where even before COVID-19, there were significant barriers to learning, especially for the poorest and most marginalized children.
We must focus on the immediate health response and saving lives, but the unprecedented disruption to children’s education could result in a lost generation. The longer schools are closed, the greater the risk that millions of children in developing countries will experience a lifetime of poorer learning and lower future earnings. The most marginalized may never return to school.
It is true that all of us from the more wealthy world must not lose sight of the plight of children in less fortunate countries. Efforts need to be supported that are aimed at trying to protect the children of less economically well of countries. This is very hard to do when every country has its own pressing problems. Chalkface supports the #EndCOVIDForAll campaign and wishes it the best of luck on achieving its very worthwhile goals.
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