It is not only in France that the level of students and the social divide with school closures are worrying.
Class closures linked to Covid-19, which still affect "more than 156 million students in nineteen countries", "can no longer last" on pain of a "generational disaster", warned Monday two agencies of the UN.
“It has been eighteen months since the Covid-19 epidemic began and the education of millions of children continues to be disrupted (…) This situation cannot go on.
Schools should be the last to close and the first to reopen ”, plead in a joint declaration the general directors of Unicef (children), Henrietta Fore, and Unesco (education, science, culture), Audrey Azoulay.
Ahead of the Global Education Meeting on July 13, we urge decisionmakers and governments to prioritize the safe reopening of schools to avoid a generational catastrophe.
We can reopen schools safely, and we must. @ UNICEF @UNESCO
- Henrietta H. Fore (@unicefchief) July 12, 2021
For these two officials, the reopening of schools cannot wait for the end of the pandemic or even the vaccination of all students and staff and can be done "in complete safety", especially since schools "are not among the main ones. places of spread ”.
They urge governments to open schools
On the other hand, “it may be impossible to prevent the inevitable impact that children and young people will experience who have not been able to attend school.
Whether it is loss of learning, psychological distress, exposure to violence and abuse, missed school meals and vaccinations or lack of sociability, the consequences for children will be felt everywhere: in their academic results, in their societal commitment and in their physical and mental health ”, they underline.
"Especially since the most affected are often children from low-resource backgrounds, who do not have access to distance learning tools, or young children, who are at key stages of development", add -they, also evoking “equally heavy losses for the parents”.
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“In order to avoid a generational catastrophe, we urge policymakers and governments to prioritize the safe reopening of schools.
Closing schools puts our future in danger only to preserve our present in an uncertain way, ”they conclude.
In France, Emmanuel Macron explained at the end of April, after three weeks of closures, that “school helps fight against social inequalities and destiny. This is why our children must be able to continue to go there and to learn, with a strict protocol ”.