The COVID-19 pandemic is threatening to undo years of progress on global education. Since the pandemic started, school closures have affected up to 91% of enrolled learners, or 1.6 billion children. Here is a look at how countries’ policies on school closures evolved over the past six months.<\/p>\n
COVID-19 quickly transformed from a localized epidemic to a global pandemic with far-reaching consequences across sectors<\/p>\n
6 months ago, when COVID-19 was still just a localized epidemic, only two countries had restrictions on their education systems: China (partial closures) and Mongolia (total closure).<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Two months later, as we entered April 2020, COVID-19 resulted in 193 country-wide school closures, affecting over 91% of enrolled learners or 1.6 billion children<\/strong>.<\/a><\/p>\n In Africa, not a single country had its schools fully open.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n For months, kids missed out on learning. In fact, a recent survey of youth in 46 countries found that 8 in 10 children surveyed felt they were learning little or nothing<\/strong> at all during the pandemic. Since then, to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on education systems, governments have responded in vastly different ways.<\/strong> Some areas of the world — from Norway to France or Greenland — gradually began to reopen their school doors for all students…<\/a><\/p>\n While other countries – such as China and Cote d’Ivoire — instituted partial reopenings…<\/a><\/p>\n …but the vast majority remained closed<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n In August, the picture looked entirely different: Just 33 countries still had country-wide school closures<\/strong> <\/a><\/p>\n …but children were out of school in another 142 countries that were on academic break.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n
\nThis has far-reaching consequences: just 3 months of missed schooling can translate into 1.5 years of learning loss<\/strong> many years later, and further result in lower levels of employment and earnings.<\/a><\/p>\n