(ANSA) - ROME, JANUARY 24 - More than 635 million students in the world are affected by the total or partial closure of schools. This was announced in a note by Unicef on International Education Day.
"In March, we will mark two years of global education disruptions linked to covid-19. Quite simply, we are witnessing an almost insurmountable loss of scale in children's schooling," said Robert Jenkins, UNICEF Head of Education. They must finish, but simply reopening schools is not enough. Students need intensive support to make up for lost education. "
In low- and middle-income countries, learning losses due to school closures - according to Unicef - have left up to 70% of 10-year-olds unable to read or understand a simple text, compared to 53% before the pandemic.
In Ethiopia, primary school children are estimated to have learned 30 to 40 percent of the math they would have learned had it been a normal school year. In the United States, learning losses have been observed in many states including Texas, California, Colorado, Tennessee, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Maryland. In Texas, for example, two-thirds of third-grade children were below their math level in 2021, compared with half of children in 2019.
In several Brazilian states, about 3 in 4 children in second grade cannot read, compared with 1 in 2 pre-pandemic.
Across Brazil, 1 in 10 students between the ages of 10 and 15 reported that they have no intention of returning to school once it reopens.
In South Africa, schoolchildren are 75% behind a full school year from where they should be.
About 400,000 / 500,000 students would have dropped out of school entirely between March 2020 and July 2021. More than 370 million children worldwide have lost school meals during school closures, which for some children is the only reliable source of food and daily nutrition.
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