Global Humanitarian Overview 2023

Education crisis severely disrupts a generation of students

The pandemic’s lingering impacts continue to strike a devastating blow to education worldwide. By the end of 2021, more than 200 schooldays were lost, with students missing more than 2 trillion hours since the pandemic began. School closures affected more than 1.6 billion students globally, with more than 1 billion living in low- and middle-income countries. The majority of school-age children live in low- and middle-income countries, and they endured significantly longer school closures than those in high-income countries. In South Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean, children missed three times the amount of education than was received by children living in Western Europe.

By the end of 2021, many schools had reopened. However, one in four education systems was still closed, and many systems have only partly reopened. Most children continued to experience partial or temporary disruptions to their learning well into 2022. While remote and online learning have served as practical tools in providing children with educational opportunities during school closures, school systems have had unequal capacities to support students and their families. Of the 1.6 billion students out of school, 1.3 billion had no Internet connection at home or a device to learn on, with rural areas having minimal access. Girls are disproportionately affected by the digital divide in education. A recent study in five different countries across sub-Saharan Africa found that only 12 per cent of female teenagers have been able to continue their studies through the pandemic without disruptions, compared to 23 per cent of male teenagers.

The digital divide and educational crises are particularly acute for those students also living in humanitarian crises. Refugees, IDPs and migrant children are among the least likely to have access to digital education. Recent analysis from Education Cannot Wait reveals that approximately 198 million crisis-affected children and adolescents (out of 222 million) are either out of school or not learning, comprising 89 per cent of all crisis-affected children and adolescents.

For children living in crises, education has become even more dangerous. In the past two years alone, there have been more than 5,000 reported attacks on education and incidents of military use of schools and universities, resulting in harm to more than 9,000 students and educators. Students in HRP countries, such as Burkina Faso, Colombia, Ethiopia, Mali, Myanmar and Nigeria, have witnessed increased attacks against education in recent years.

Cameroon

Melong, Cameroon

Marie Noel’s dream is to learn with tablets and computers. Soon her dream will come true, as there are plans to build e-containers in her school.

UNICEF/Frank Dejongh

Even before the pandemic, it was estimated that 57 per cent of children in low- and middle-income countries suffered from learning poverty – meaning they were unable to read and understand a simple story by age 10. Lengthy school closures and the lack of adequate remote-learning opportunities during the pandemic may have increased the rate of children in learning poverty in those countries by up to 70 per cent. These increases have been pronounced in regions where schools have been closed the longest. As a result, this generation of students is at risk of losing approximately $17 billion in lifetime earnings due to pandemic-related learning losses.

Humanitarian organizations, their donors and partners can play a unique role in making education more efficient and equitable for children and youths living in crises. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to the current humanitarian educational crisis, but holistic solutions that focus on a wide range of educational services can help accelerate the learning recovery from the pandemic. These actions include providing school meals, ensuring access to technology, and providing psychosocial and mental health support and help to local actors that provide equal education opportunities for girls and boys.

References

  1. World Bank, 100 Weeks into the Pandemic: The Importance of Keeping Schools Open and Investing in Learning Recovery Programs.
  2. UNESCO, UNICEF and World Bank, The State of the Global Education Crisis: A Path to Recovery
  3. Save the Children, Children Have Lost More than a third of Their School Year to the Pandemic – Save the Children.
  4. World Bank, We are Losing a Generation: The Devastating Impacts of COVID-19.
  5. UNICEF and ITU, How Many Children and Young People have Internet Access at Home?
  6. UNESCO, When Schools Shut: Gendered Impacts of COVID-19 School Closures.
  7. INEE, ‘What Will Happen to our Children?’: The Impact of COVID-19 School Closures on Child Protection and Educational Inequalities in Three Humanitarian Contexts.
  8. Education Cannot Wait, Global Estimates: Number of Crisis-affected Children and Adolescents in Need of Education Support.
  9. Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA), Education Under Attack 2022.
  10. UNICEF, The State of Global Learning Poverty: 2022 Update, p. 5. In sub-Saharan Africa it was 86 per cent.
  11. UNICEF, The State of Global Learning Poverty: 2022 Update.
  12. UNICEF, The State of Global Learning Poverty: 2022 Update. p. 5. Namely in South Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean.
  13. UNESCO, UNICEF and World Bank, The State of the Global Education Crisis: A Path to Recovery.