During the first phase of the pandemic, most countries had their schools closed for many weeks and even months. The brief joy of having the day off from school was followed by social isolation, learning deficits, and frustration.
On the occasion of International Education Day, celebrated on January 24, The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) has given good news: as the pandemic has progressed, there has been a change in strategy throughout the world and, in most of the countries, schools are mostly open, despite the omicron variant of the virus and new waves of infection.
However, education experts warn of the long-term consequences of the closures and call for hardening schools for later crises.
“In 135 countries, schools are mostly open”, said the UNESCO Deputy Director General for Education, Stefania Giannini, in Paris. The expert added that only twelve countries keep their schools closed.
On average, he continued, schools were closed for 20 weeks and only partially open for another 20 weeks. Giannini added that decisions regarding the reopening of schools varied by continent: “In Uganda, schools have just reopened after 80 weeks of closure”. In addition, it reports that there have also been prolonged closures in Kuwait, Bangladesh and the Philippines.
According to Gianni, in Europe and North America, the average was 20 to 23 weeks of closed schools. France, for example, closed schools for just seven weeks, with a further five weeks of limited operation. In Germany, the average closing time of secondary schools was 17 weeks in the different federal states.
“The good news is that governments have now decided to keep schools open, whatever effort this requires”, highlighted the UNESCO expert, adding that this contrasts with the situation a year ago, when most educational institutions were closed.
The reasons for the change of course, he pointed out, were the vaccination campaigns, the improvement of hygiene plans in schools and an effect of “learning by doing”. Also, Giannini pointed out, there has been awareness of the importance of face-to-face teaching: “There is a global recognition of the school as a social and exchange space.”
The expert notes that the closure of schools has long-term consequences, and that the quality of learning has suffered, for example, in terms of reading and comprehension skills.
The president of the German Commission for UNESCO, Maria Böhmer, warns of the serious consequences, especially for those who were already disadvantaged in the education system. “The impact of school closures on young people’s learning could be one of the most costly consequences of the pandemic worldwide”, he asserts, adding that hundreds of millions of young people already lack access to schooling and that the pandemic threatens to create further educational deficits.
The director general of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, affirmed that it is necessary to create better educational opportunities in the long term after the crisis derived from the coronavirus. “We have to repair the injustices of the past and make the digital transformation inclusive and equitable,” he said..
In the case of Germany, the UNESCO representative, Böhmer, also called for digitization in education to be expanded. “Distance learning, however, can only be an imperfect substitute for instructional time lost in the classroom,” she said. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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