Kathmandu/Islamabad: School closures have led to alarming inequities in learning opportunities for children in South Asia, despite significant efforts by governments and partners to expand remote learning, according to UNICEF research conducted in India, the Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

School closures in South Asia due to the COVID-19 pandemic have interrupted the learning of 434 million children. According to UNICEF’s research, a substantial proportion of students and their parents reported that students learnt significantly less compared to pre-pandemic levels. In India, 80 per cent of children aged 14-18 years reported lower levels of learning than when physically at school. Similarly, in Sri Lanka, 69 per cent of parents of primary school children reported that their children were learning “less” or “a lot less.” Girls, children from the most disadvantaged households and children with disabilities faced the biggest challenges while learning remotely.

“School closures in South Asia have forced hundreds of millions of children and their teachers to transition to remote learning in a region with low connectivity and device affordability,” said George Laryea-Adjei, UNICEF Regional Director for South Asia. “Even when a family has access to technology, children are not always able to access it. As a result, children have suffered enormous setbacks in their learning journey.”

Despite significant efforts from governments, low connectivity and access to digital devices have severely hampered efforts to roll out remote learning.

In India, 42 per cent of children between 6-13 years reported not using any type of remote learning during school closures. In Pakistan 23 per cent of younger children didn’t have access to any device that could support remote-learning. Poor and disadvantaged households have been the worst hit, with many families struggling to afford even a single device.       

Even when devices are available, UNICEF’s research indicates that they are often underutilized and that children’s access to them is often limited. For example, in Pakistan, among children with access to devices, only about 24 per cent could use them when they wanted to.

The research found that student-teacher engagement, when regular and reciprocal, is a strong predictor of success in children’s learning, especially for younger students.

However, the surveys found that most students had little or no contact with their teachers after schools closed. In Sri Lankan private primary schools, 52 per cent of teachers reported contacting their students five days a week, but this number dropped to only 8 per cent for teachers from public primary schools.  

“The safe reopening of schools must be considered an utmost priority for all governments. Parallel investing in teachers will ensure that teachers and schools can adapt to all situations. The more teachers are trained, equipped and supported on distance and blended learning, the better they will be able to reach all their students,” added George Laryea-Adjei. “This is a critical investment we need to make for children as the region gears up for future waves of COVID-19. We need to build systems which can weather any storm and keep children learning, no matter the circumstances.”

To ensure that children keep learning, UNICEF is calling on:

• Governments to prioritize the safe reopening of all schools, while also ensuring that children are able to pursue quality learning remotely if necessary
• Teachers to assess children’s learning levels and ensure catch up is enabled through a “learning recovery” period
• Governments to prioritize the vaccination of teachers to support the safe reopening of schools
• Governments to train and equip teachers to better reach children and adolescents with limited or no access to technology through a combination of modalities including mobile devices, TV, radio, and printed materials
• Governments and donors to protect and expand investments in education, including critical pre-primary and foundational literacy and numeracy
• Private sector and civil society organizations to work with governments in improving connectivity and creating high-quality, multilingual remote learning content tailored to students’ needs
• School administrators and education officials to provide more guidance to teachers to engage with their students and use different types of learning techniques
• Parents and caregivers to receive adequate support and guidance to continue home-based learning

School closures in South Asia have compounded a situation which was already precarious. Even before the pandemic, almost 60 per cent of children in South Asia were unable to read and understand a simple text by the time they are 10 years old. In addition, 12.5 million children at the primary level and 16.5 million children at the lower secondary level were out of school.

___________________

UNICEF Press Release

The post Covid-19: Repeated school closures lead to learning loss first appeared on Sindh Courier.

As the Delta and other variants of pandemic have reached from UK, India and Africa, the Sindh government has once again closed down all private and public schools in the province whereas the UNICEF and UNESCO have urged that the governments must prioritize the safe reopening of schools and take steps to avoid ‘generational catastrophe’.

The fact is that we can reopen the schools safely and we must. Sindh government fears deaths by covid19 spread but doesn’t fear unemployment caused by closing down the private schools where hundreds of thousands teachers are engaged to earn the bread and butter for their children.

Thousands of families will face starvation due to poverty, inflation and unemployment but no immediate measures to alleviate poverty, and control the increase in the price of vegetables, fruits and other edible things in the province. Surprisingly, the only action taken was closing the educational institutions.

Due to covid19 outbreak and subsequent lockdowns, a large number of white collar people are compelled to lead miserable life. People have been mentally, financially, educationally and economically devastated.

The grave situation can be judged from the recent survey report released by Sindh Mental Health Authority, according to which a large the people were compelled to sell their properties to meet their ends while 25 percent people thought of committing suicide. The report also mentioned increased cases of depression.

The situation might have caused increase in social crimes.

In such a situation, a serious attitude is direly needed to resolve the issue of unemployment in the province. Appropriate measures should be taken so that educational institutions could be opened.

Fawad Hussain Samo

Hyderabad Sindh

The post Open Schools and avoid Generational Catastrophe first appeared on Sindh Courier.