Relegating education to the backbenches during and after the pandemic will have wider consequences than merely creating learning poverty and uneducated individuals in the world.
A FRANCIS OFM
At this critical juncture as the pandemic continues to rage on, the general rule of thumb is to focus on the essentials. It is a common-sense approach, which is by far the simpler, yet a practical strategy to cope with the shocks and the aftershocks of the day.
Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) upholds education as the fundamental right of all. UDHR promotes it as the single most essential right in realizing all other human rights. UNESCO, UNICEF and many other international human rights agencies advocate indefatigably for its realization throughout the globe. Hence, the question, “Did countries across the globe give due priority to this fundamental human right during the pandemic or has it been pushed to the backbenches?” cannot be sidelined. Most importantly, it should find its place of enquiry and reflection in our day-to-day political and civic conversations.
The disruption and the ‘new normal’
The ‘UN Policy Brief on Education During Covid-19 and Beyond’, released in August 2020, reported that COVID-19 disruption on global education systems is the largest in history. Cautioning about a series of ‘generational catastrophes’ looming in store for us, due to the closure of schools, the UN reported that nearly 1.6 billion learners from more than 190 countries across all continents were affected by the pandemic. Statistically, this includes 94 per cent of the global student population and most worryingly, about 99 per cent of it is from the low and lower-middle income countries. Right to Education During and After the Pandemic Relegating education to the backbenches during and after the pandemic will have wider consequences than merely creating learning poverty and uneducated individuals in the world.
Capitalizing on the innovative instrumentality of the modern technologies, many countries fast-tracked a series of viable alternatives to the existing learning approaches. A big shift occurred in an unprecedented speed, particularly, on the delivery modes of education, using the internet and smart gadgets. Virtual learning swiftly became the ‘new normal’.
The ground reality
The technology-driven learning mode, far from being the panacea for handling the disruption, created formidable challenges on the global education systems. Data collected in a survey conducted by UNESCO, UNICEF and World Bank on the National Education Responses to COVID-19 confirms that 463 million students across the world are cut off from learning due to their lack of access to the required learning equipment and the availability of the necessary technology. This number equals to 31 percent of the total global student population! Unsurprisingly, three out of four who are cut off from learning are from poorer countries and poorer households. This, sadly, is the ground reality!
The question, “Are we giving adequate priority to education, during this pandemic?” does not cast any ambiguity as it gathers its answer with candid straightforwardness. Commenting on India’s response, Aparajitha Narayanan, a Legal Intern for the United Nations International Residual Mechanism from Criminal Tribunal (UNIRMCT) and for Global Rights Compliance, writes, “India has not ensured that its current education delivery systems are available to and accessible by all, this educational disparity may lead to an upsurge in other endemic consequences like child labour and child marriage.” It indeed, is a shared saga in most countries of the Global South!
The present global crisis in education is not a temporary setback and will not wane when the vaccination conquers the pandemic. With all the required ingredients, it is heading towards creating a perfect storm of disaster on the global education systems and on humanity’s hope for education as a fundamental human right of all. As early as September 2020, Henrietta Fore, the executive director of UNICEF, alerted the world about the potential detrimental impacts of children missing school. Being out of school, they are driven to face the risk of getting exposed to a host of vulnerable living conditions such as child labour, sexual abuse, and all kind of emotional and physical violence. It could affect their mental and psychological health and integrity.
Validating Fore’s warning, on September 27, The Washington Post published an article exposing the surge in child labour, teen-pregnancies and forced marriages in poorer and developing countries. The article, “As COVID-19 closes schools, the world’s children go to work”, featured news from Asian and African countries, where children from poorer families are increasingly pressured to enter into illegal and hazardous labour arena.
Generational catastrophes
An estimate of 24 million students who will be dropping out of school due to COVID-19 is the projection of UN for the post pandemic era. As a vicious cycle, this is going to cast long shadows of generational catastrophes on the future of the world. In 2019, prior to the Pandemic, the World Bank highlighted an increasing phenomenon of learning crisis the world was getting into, namely the ‘learning poverty’, which implied that one is unable to read and understand a simple text by the age of ten. With the disruption on the global education systems during the pandemic, we could only imagine how bad the learning poverty will be in the coming years!
Relegating education to the backbenches during and after the pandemic will have wider consequences than merely creating learning poverty and uneducated individuals in the world. It will horrendously impact on the fabric of our living as peaceful, prosperous and democratic societies, and will definitely ruin our vision for eradication of poverty, unemployment, homelessness and destitution. Most of all, it can create a stumbling block in preventing violence, abuses and discrimination along the lines of gender, sex, race, religion, caste, income, language and culture.
In case we have forgotten the promise of education, it is good to ignite our memories with a reminder from Nelson Mandela, “The power of education extends beyond the development of skills we need for economic success. It can contribute to nation-building and reconciliation… Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mine worker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation…”
Can we truly hope that the governments, policymakers and other stakeholders will stay vigilant to avert the projected exacerbation of the global learning crisis in the post pandemic times? Can we say that moving forward, the annual budgets of the nations will reflect sufficient funding to promote the education of all, with no exception to the socially and marginally poor? Can we expect that our annual celebration of the International Day of Education on 24th of this month under the theme “Recover and Revitalize education for the COVID-19 Pandemic Generation” will bind us all with a substantive promise and future of inclusivity, whether we live in the so-called Global North or in the Global South?
If governments and policymakers continue to envision matters of education as the way they envisioned it prior to, and during the pandemic, then there really is not much to believe that we are focusing on the essentials!
∎
A Francis ofm is a certified clinician and supervisor in psychotherapy, and marriage, family and couple therapy and works in a multicultural community setting of the Greater Toronto, Canada.
