It is statistical correct to say by research that two thirds of the world’s school-age children that is approximately 1.3billion children aged 3 to 17 years do not have internet connection.(source UNICEF and ITU). From this statistics we can analyze the situation and accurately guess that most of these children could not learn from home during the Covid-19 lock down and as such lost valuable time and opportunity to learn and better themselves due to the effects of the pandemic that led to the strict measures on people staying indoors during the lockdown, hence shutting down formal education system for that period of time.
Another sector that was hugely affected by the pandemic was the ‘368.5 million children across 143 countries who normally rely on school meals for a reliable source of daily nutrition who must now look to other sources.(UN policy Brief, April 2020.pg9)’. The bitter impact of the pandemic was greatly felt as it resulted in closing down schools and taking away the privilege that schools provided for most of the children in low-income countries such as the breakfast school meals that normally helped children whose parents could not afford to feed them daily. It also affected children who saw school as a haven, a promise and a chance at better living. But their dreams got cut off or put on temporary hold as the pandemic raved on.
Children across the world have lost at least 74s day of schooling due to lack of access to remote learning (online learning). (Source: Save the children,March 2021).
This tallies with the fact that most school children have no access to the Internet and as such cannot take their classes remotely leaving them to their devices which is at the mercy of waiting for schools to fully open this implies they get no formal education till the pandemic eases up and some eventually drop out before it does.
As of March 2021, close to half the world’s students are out of School world-wide due to the inconsistencies with the Normal traditional School settings as affected by the Covid-19.( UNESCO).
Children from low income settlements that were put into the school system in hopes that they will get educated and have more opportunities in life are currently at a loss as the school system is yet to get stabilized after the pandemic.
There were instances where these lower-income countries received aids to help them pull through the toughest pandemic times. An example would be on April 1st 2020, GPE unlocked US$250million to help 67 lower – middle -income countries mitigate the impact of the Corona pandemic on education. Source: GPE Secretariat.
The Covid-19 pandemic hit education on a large scale, and its effect will be felt for a while as it will take a lot of work to start rebuilding systems that would accommodate the lapses caused by the pandemic and fix the huge gap it has created especially in the lower-income countries as most children in that spectrum will find it hard returning to school hence diminishing all the hard work it took to get them in school in the first place.
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