The COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic represents a threat to the advancement of education around the world, as it has two significant impacts:
1) The practically universal closure of schools at all levels.
2) The economic recession generated by the pandemic control measures.
If considerable efforts are not made to counteract these effects, school closures will cause learning losses, increased school dropouts, and greater inequality. The economic crisis affecting households will exacerbate the damage due to reduced educational supplies and demands. Those two would have, together, a long-term cost on human capital and well-being. However, if countries react quickly to ensure that learning is not interrupted, they can mitigate the damage and even transform recovery into a new opportunity. The policy responses needed to achieve this goal can be summarized in three overlapping stages: deal with the situation, manage continuity, and improve activities.
In the context of the implementation of these policies, the objective of education systems should be to recover, but not to repeat what was done previously. In many countries, the situation before the pandemic was already characterized by a low learning level, high levels of inequality, and slow progress. Now, countries have the opportunity to “rebuild better.” They can use the most effective post-crisis recovery strategies as the basis for making long-term improvements in areas such as assessments, pedagogy, technology, financing, and parental involvement.
Without strong policies, this will have immediate costs on both the learning and health of children and young people. If drastic measures are not taken by the government in power regarding education and learning, school dropouts will increase, especially among the most disadvantaged families. A clear example is what happens in our country with our children and young people of scarce resources that do not have the essential material to receive online classes. Their economic situation and the long distances they have to go through to study are not the only reasons for this problem. We have to consider that in most of the cases, there is simply no school near their home. These problems have been dragging on even before the pandemic. Consequently, inequality having, as a result, inequality in learning will increase, as well as the recession of an entire country. Only wealthy and educated families will give their children the support to continue learning at home. We cannot neglect the sacrifice of some parents who are not in the best economic situation, but they do tireless and arduous work so that their children keep learning.
Finally, I would like to remind you that education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world, so it is our responsibility to do protect it.
Written by
Doménica Muñoz
3ro BGU A
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