Covid closures still affecting 400 million pupils – Unicef

Schools in 23 countries with 405 million students are still partially or fully closed because of Covid, says the United Nations Children’s Fund.

The charity Unicef ​​estimates that 147 million children have missed at least half of their personal schooling.

Some vulnerable children, especially girls, have not returned to the reopened schools.

Unicef ​​Executive Director Catherine Russell says children are “the hidden victims of the pandemic”.

While children have been less vulnerable to the most severe health effects of the coronavirus, their lives have been turned upside down by the pandemic’s school closures.

In March 2020, 150 countries worldwide closed their schools completely, with a further 10 partial closures.

Two years later, 19 still have some of their schools closed.

In another four — the Philippines, Honduras, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu in the South Pacific — at least 70% remain closed, the proportion Unicef ​​classifies as a full closure.

“We’re seeing kids going back who read before, who can’t read now, who did numbers before, who can’t now,” Ms Russell told BBC News.

She fears most for those who have dropped out of school and are at risk of becoming vulnerable to exploitation.

“Some kids were put into the workforce because their families were so impoverished,” she said.

“Girls get married early too – and that’s a terrible fate.”

In the Philippines, where outdoor play for children is also restricted, some schools reopened in the fall but most students are staying home.

Chloe Almojuela Dikit, 13, has been trying to keep up with her classes online.

“I miss the classes and the classmates and also the activities and schoolwork — just the things we do in school,” she said.

Her father, Dioecro Albior Dikit, supports his family by scavenging.

He wants his daughter to go back to school and worries about what she’s lacking in social skills and instruction.

“A lot of things – first, how they interact with people because they haven’t been face-to-face,” Mr Dikit said.

“That’s the first, because when people interact with others a lot, they learn ideas about things like, ‘Oh, that’s okay?’

“You really need stuff like that.”

Literacy and numeracy skills were already at their lowest across sub-Saharan Africa before the pandemic, according to Unicef.

And when schools in Uganda reopened in January this year, about one in ten students did not return.

Extreme flooding had also damaged many school buildings, so Unicef ​​provided 457 heavy-duty tents.

Some have gone to the western mining town of Kasese.

Lillian Nikaru, who teaches at one of the district’s Bulembia Primary Schools, told BBC News: “The break of almost two years has hit them hard and when they started again they had lost or forgotten a lot of things and we started to re-teach them.”

Teachers have also reached out to families to persuade them to let girls return, including those who have become teenage mothers.

Sharon (not her real name), now 17, became pregnant in 2020 when schools were closing.

The school has set up a place nearby for an aunt to look after her baby during the day, and Sharon takes three breaks a day to breastfeed.

“I wanted to show the other girls that if you make a mistake, you can still go back to school,” she said.

“When I’m in class, I really focus on my class.

“Sometimes I forget that I have a child and only remember when my aunt comes.”

Sharon is repeating a year and hopes that continuing her education will allow her to pursue an apprenticeship as a chef.

But the pandemic has not only set back their learning, it has also robbed them of social contacts and life experiences outside of the home.

Trinidad and Tobago has experienced one of the longest partial school closures in the world, with primary schools not scheduled to reopen until April.

Some parents have been frustrated by delays that they have found difficult to understand when other countries have managed a return to learning.

While schools remained closed for the youngest, beaches and bars reopened.

For Elin, nine, that means two years of her school days being reduced to four or five hours a day on a laptop on a small desk in her bedroom.

“Sometimes I miss things and I’m afraid to ask,” she said.

Her mother, Kate Nothnagel, told BBC News Elin had only met her class teacher once this school year and last year she had no real contact with her teacher at all.

“They’re not in a relationship and she doesn’t feel very confident,” she said.

“She’s a very outgoing child by nature and I’ve seen her become very reserved.”

Elin added that she misses subjects like music, art and physical education, which just aren’t the same online.

But she is one of the lucky kids who have a quiet place to study, a device and broadband, while others, like in many countries, are less fortunate.

Other parents in Trinidad and Tobago told BBC News they were concerned about the impact of social isolation on their children’s mental well-being.

And they were unaware of any national plan to help their children catch up on lost learning.

Unicef ​​collected data from 122 countries and said only 60% had released plans for an education recovery, suggesting they are not yet being taken seriously enough.

It warns that Covid has exposed and widened deep inequalities in children’s access to education.

The charity is calling for bigger investments to avoid a devastating chain reaction of wiping out life chances.

The share of foreign development assistance going to education worldwide has fallen from 8.8% in 2019 to 5.5% in 2020.

Ms Russell said education departments around the world needed to have plans – but global commitment was also needed to support the education recovery.

“We just have to really commit to taking care of these kids so they can thrive,” she said.