Education

17/09/21 We are facing an education crisis. For nearly 77 million children, the pandemic has taken away their classrooms for the past 18 months. Schoolchildren worldwide have lost 1.8 trillion hours and counting of in-person learning due to COVID-19 lockdowns. The right to go to school and learn is central to every child’s development, safety and…, No Time to Lose installation at the United Nations, Why schools should reopen as soon as possible, “Children should return to in-person learning as soon as possible” The cost of school closures on students’ learning, health and well-being has been devastating.  The repercussions for every child, their family, their community and their economy will be felt for years to come. Many children will never catch up. School closures impact every child,…, Supported by:, The African Council of Religious Leaders Africa Region of the World Organization of the Scout Movement Educate a Child Education Above All Foundation The Education Commission EEAS-European External Action Service European Commission – Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations European Parliament intergroup…, #ReopenSchools, “I miss them [teachers and classmates] a lot.” Brithany, 11, Ecuador "[E]very second is important to be able to study," Alisha, 15, Pakistan “All kids around the world should go to school in person.” Favour, 12, South Africa “It’s better to go to school because it’s the gateway to the future.” Darina, 16, Spain

KATHMANDU, 9 September 2021 – School closures have led to alarming inequities in learning opportunities for children in South Asia, despite significant efforts by governments and partners to expand remote learning, according to UNICEF research conducted in India, the Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.   School closures in South Asia due to the…

An adolescent skills development and empowerment programme - the  Markoding Innovation Challenge 2019  - brought together marginalised young people aged 10 - 19 from Jakarta and Semarang to develop innovative digital solutions which addressed issues that concern them, learn new skills, receive support from mentors, and have space to explore new…

COPENHAGEN/GENEVA, 30 August – As millions of school children return to school across the European Region where the highly transmissible  SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant is dominant , the WHO Regional Office for Europe and UNICEF Europe and Central Asia Regional Office call for schools to stay open and made safer by adopting measures to minimise…

NEW YORK, 24 August 2021 – A child's first day of school—a landmark moment for the youngest students and their parents around the world—has been delayed due to COVID-19 for an estimated 140 million young minds, UNICEF said in a new analysis released as summer break comes to end in many parts of the world. For an estimated eight million of these…

Tracking and supporting learning more effectively is a key strategy to improve lagging learning outcomes in Afghanistan. For this reason, UNICEF worked with the Ministry of Education to develop a National Assessment Framework for Afghanistan in 2018, the first pillar of which is classroom-based formative assessment. UNICEF also supported the…

Since 2013, the Ethiopian Ministry of Education, supported by UNICEF, led a formative assessment initiative called Assessment for Learning (AfL), which equips teachers with skills, resources and a supportive environment to shift their teaching to become more engaging for students, with the ultimate goal of improving learning outcomes. As of March…

In 2020, students across Sri Lanka lost up to 141 school days due to COVID19-related closures, with the number going up to 178 lost days in some regions. When schools reopened in August 2020, the provincial government rolled out the Learning Recovery Programme to minimise the learning gap between where the learner actually is and the grade…

Nairobi/Johannesburg, 27 July 2021 – UNICEF estimates that 40 per cent of all school-aged children across Eastern and Southern Africa are currently not in school due to COVID19-induced closures and pre-pandemic levels of out of school children.  Across the region, we are seeing re-closing of schools mid-year due to recent COVID-19 surges, with…

GENEVA, 27 July 2021 - "Even with schools in the northern hemisphere closed for the summer, more than 600 million children in countries not on academic break are still affected by school closures. "In Asia and the Pacific: in nearly half the countries, schools have been closed for more than 200 days during the pandemic. "After some of the longest…

PRETORIA, 22 July 2021 – The impact of disrupted education since the COVID-19 outbreak has been devastating, with learners between 75 per cent and a full school year behind where they should be, according to latest statistics. Rotational attendance, sporadic school closures and days off for specific grades, have resulted in school children losing…

Never has the saying “Home is the first school, and parents are children’s first teachers” been truer. When school closed, COVID-19 placed parents squarely and suddenly on the frontlines of the pandemic and in home-based learning as never before. This case study examines how UNICEF-supported education programming in India is building on this…