The Novel Coronavirus or COVID-19 led to an “unprecedented education emergency” due to which approximately 9.7 million children might never go back to schools again.
On the 13th of July, a British charity for children named, Save the Children published a report.
The report by Save the Children was based on the data issued by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in April 2020, said approximately 1.6 billion students left schools and colleges as precautionary measures to contain the spread of the Novel Coronavirus.
The Save the Children charity report read, “For the first time in human history, an entire generation of children globally have had their education disrupted.”
It further added, the number of students leaving universities, colleges and schools might increase to millions in coming months.
One of the major reasons could be economical fall out and financial crisis due to the pandemic.
Inger Ashing, the Chief Executive of Save the Children, non government organisation (NGO) said, “Around 10 million children may never return to school — this is an unprecedented education emergency and governments must urgently invest in learning.”
She further added, “Instead we are at risk of unparallelled budget cuts which will see existing inequality explode between the rich and the poor, and between boys and girls. We know the poorest, most marginalised children who were already the furthest behind have suffered the greatest loss, with no access to distance learning — or any kind of education — for half an academic year.”
Top countries which could be affected are:
Niger, Mali, Chad, Liberia, Afghanistan, Guinea, Mauritania, Yemen, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal and Ivory Coast.
In India, the nationwide lockdown and pandemic affected as many as 32 crore students after schools and educational institutes remained shut temporarily.
Stay tuned for further updates.
