…Says $7trn needed to salvage basic education

By Adesina Wahab

With COVID-19 pandemic ravaging the globe for over two years now, the World Bank has estimated that students lost over 200 school days by the end of 2021.

The number of days are estimated to be about a school year and a half. In a report, entitled, “We are losing a generation: The devastating impacts of COVID-19,” the bank also said governments across the globe would need about $5 trillion this year to fix primary and secondary education.

The report read: “But unless they get all children and young people back to school, keep them in class, and recover the central elements of learning, this generation could lose twice or three times that amount in earning losses.

“The first impact was the millions of lives lost due to the disease caused by the COVID 19 virus. The second was the human suffering caused by job instability and poverty. The third is on children and youth who should have been in school but were told to stay at home.

“It is two years since the pandemic started. Nearly all countries decided that one of the main ways to fight the pandemic was to keep students out of school and universities. Public health experts had decided that keeping education institutions open would lead to further spread of the virus. To ‘flatten the curve’ and prevent overcrowding of hospitals, kids would have to stay home.

READ ALSO: Students lose 200 school days to COVID-19 – World Bank

“Many European and some East Asian countries reopened school relatively quickly, conscious of both the obvious costs for kids and the scant evidence of the benefits of the complete closure. But in many countries in South Asia, Latin America, Middle East, and even in East Asia, school closures were maintained for exceptionally long periods.

“By the end of 2021, school days lost were well above two hundred, that’s about a school year and a half.  This prolonged interruption in learning could have grave long lasting effects, particularly in middle income and poor countries.”

Learning Poverty

The report added that Learning Poverty in some countries could increase from 53 to 63 per cent.

Learning Poverty is the inability of somebody up to 10 years to do basic reading and writing.

It said: “An additional seven million students would drop out of school. The effects on marginalised minorities and girls will be even worse.

“Our loss estimates have been revised upwards, and now we expect that, unless swift and bold action is taken, learning poverty can reach 70 per cent.”

The report said in rich, middle or low income nations, children from poor families were hardest hit, as their opportunities to maintain any educational engagement through remote learning are limited.

The report stated:“Internet access for them is poor: only half of all students in middle income countries and just a tenth in the poorest countries have web access. The use of TV and radio and facilitating learning materials has helped, but it cannot replace interactive education. ‘Learning’ cannot just mean watching television or listening to the radio for a few hours a day.

“The result is a widening of the already large inequality of opportunity. In the developing world, COVID-19 might lead to lower growth, higher poverty and more inequality for a generation, a terrible triple threat to global prosperity for decades to come.

“The future of a billion kids around the world is at risk. Unless we get them back in school again and find ways to remedy the effects of the interruption, COVID-19 will result in a huge setback for this generation.”

On the efforts to reopen schools safely, the World Bank said it was working in nearly 60 countries on COVID-19-related education programmes valued at over $11 billion.

The figure, though a record spending by the bank, is still a fraction of the $72 billion the United States is spending to safely reopen public schools.

While acknowledging that hybrid learning had come to stay, it suggested that investments in technology had to be cleverly coupled with investments in learning skills.

“The pandemic has quickened a change in mindset about the use of technology, and we have a small window of opportunity to get teachers and administrators to see technology as part of the learning process.

“Besides, this is not the last pandemic or natural disaster that might force schools to close. By facilitating the continuation of the learning process at home, better learning technologies in the classroom can also make the system more effective both when schools are open and when they have to be closed,’’ it stated.

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