The biggest disruption was created on the education system by the COVID-19 which affected approximately 1.6 billion learners in more than 190 countries.
According to a study it is estimated that 23.8 million children and youth (from pre-primary to tertiary) might leave the school or could not attend the school in the following year because of the adverse impact of the pandemic on the economy. Likewise, the disruption in education has significant effects furthermore an impact of the closure will be that the institutions provide students with essential services like giving them quality education, teaching about gender equality, basic human rights and poor countries give access to food and shelter.
Education before pandemic
The difficult challenge of providing education as a fundamental right of humans was still faced by the world even before the pandemic. Regardless of the worldwide enrollment of students in many countries at an early age in schools, an astonishing sum of children approximately 250 million were not attending school moreover an adult population of 800 million was illiterate or uneducated. From the perspective of financing, the education challenge was formidable before the pandemic. There was a financial gap of $148 billion to accomplish the SDG 4-quality education- however, an estimation tells that due to the pandemic it will rise up to one third.
After Pandemic
Worldwide 94% of the learners were affected because of the pandemic which represents 1.58 billion youth and children in more than 200 countries in the mid of April 2020.
In the continent of Africa, mainly in the region of Sahel, due to the pandemic the schools closed moreover they were already facing the issues of strikes, climatic threats, and severe insecurity. In Sub-Saharan Africa, this pandemic has worsened the education situation where already 258 million children did not have the facility to attend school. The disruption in the school year would have an adverse impact on the vulnerable students who are not even sure that they can continue studying in the school or not as resources are scarce. As the schools provide many basic necessities, the burden would come on the parents which could complicate their economic conditions. The same is happening in India as well as Iraq where the economic crises have boosted due to which the people are unable to access their needs and wants.
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Furthermore, the people in these underdeveloped countries do not have access to online or digital learning as digital learning requires equipment and internet facilities which many cannot afford. Similarly, the economic and financial crises and the unemployment issue have caused the decline of many businesses which as a consequence affected the people working there to lose their jobs. Though the downsizing has an adverse impact on students as parents are unable to pay the high fees of the institutes.
However, we all must remain positive and join hands to work for the betterment as only we have the power to change the conditions of our society.
Sources:
United Nations. (2020). Policy Brief: Education during COVID-19 and beyond (August 2020) – World | ReliefWeb. August. https://reliefweb.int/report/world/policy-brief-education-during-covid-19-and-beyond-august-2020
Picture Source: https://en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse
