#illiteracy
Make Noise about the #Silent #Crisis of Global #Illiteracy
Source: https://dissidentvoice.org/2022/02/make-noise-about-the-silent-crisis-of-global-illiteracy/
It is further estimated that the crisis could force 3.1 million children and youth to drop out of school and force over 300,000 to go to work.
The United Nations notes that ‘more than 1.5 billion students and youth across the planet are or have been affected by school and university closures due to the COVID-19 #pandemic’; at least 1 billion #school children are at risk of falling behind in their studies.
Close to one third of all #children – at least 463 million – do not have any access to technologies for remote education; three out of four of these children come from rural areas, most of them from the very poorest households.
Because of the school closures during the lockdowns and the lack of infrastructure for online learning, many children ‘face the risk of never returning to school, undoing years of progress made in #education around the world’.
The United Nations now reports that in 2020 an additional 101 million or 9% of children in classes 1 to 8 ‘fell below minimum reading proficiency levels’ and that the pandemic has ‘wiped out the education gains achieved over the past 20 years’.
The #UN and World Bank have sounded the alarm that this ‘silent crisis’ will have a devastating impact on the economic future of students. They estimate that ‘this generation of children now risks losing $17 trillion in lifetime earnings in present value, or about 14% of today’s global GDP, because of COVID-19 related school closures and economic shocks’.
That only 29% of the people in sub-Saharan Africa have internet access makes the inequities of cultural life an even more pressing concern.
