The Road to Learning Recovery
Recommendations, resources and tools to help every child return to learning
Children in South Asia have lived through some of the longest school closures in the world, disrupting learning for over 430 million children. It has had a devastating impact on students’ mental health and well-being, and led to significant learning loss with the most marginalized girls and boys falling even further behind their peers.
3 out of 4 ten-year-olds in South Asia are unable to read a simple sentence, latest data shows.
Even before COVID-19, the region was grappling with a learning crisis. More than half of ten-year-olds were unable to read a simple story. Today, this figure is estimated to have reached 78 per cent. When it comes to learning remotely, the pandemic exposed stark inequities between girls and boys in terms of getting ahold of and using both the internet and digital devices like smartphones. If rapid action to recover learning is not taken, an entire generation of students in South Asia stands to lose $1.9 trillion in future earnings.
UNICEF is urging governments, local authorities and school administrations to recover lost learning for all students, particularly young children, girls and the most vulnerable by taking RAPID action to:
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Reach every child and keep them in school;
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Assess learning levels regularly;
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Prioritize teaching the fundamentals, as the building blocks of lifelong learning;
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Increase the efficiency of instruction including through catch-up learning; and
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Develop psychosocial health and well-being so every child is ready to learn.
This page provides key regional and global guiding documents, tools and resources as well as examples of good practice to support every child to return to learning.
