We Must Make It Happen - Together

“As we enter 2021, education must be at the core of pandemic response and recovery efforts,” says António Gutteres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, in his interview with Education Cannot Wait (ECW), reminding us that “upholding our pledge to leave no one behind starts with education.”

Indeed, without making inclusive, quality education a priority in the COVID-19 response and recovery for those left furthest behind in armed conflicts, forced displacement and climate-induced disasters, we will see a continued exacerbation of inequalities and a deepened global learning crisis, all while ongoing forced displacement and migration lead to an unprecedented number of children and youth losing access to their inherent human right of an education.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has further impacted the marginalization of girls and boys in contexts already affected by crisis, while wealthier children in stable countries have more easily been able to sustain their learning using remote technologies. However, today, a staggering 2.2 billion children globally, or 2/3 of children and youth under the age of 25, do not have access to internet at home, preventing them from accessing online learning during school closures. Today, only 6% of children in low-income countries have access to internet at home compared to 87% in high income countries, while only 5% of children and young people in West and Central Africa have access to internet compared to 33% globally. These figures reveal the stark reality of the huge digital divide in a long-standing learning crisis.

As a result of COVID-19, the learning crisis is now plunging to new depths. During our ECW mission to Burkina Faso in January 2021, we stood face to face with the naked reality of this learning crisis: teachers without the technology and internet access needed, alongside internally displaced and refugee children and youth with no possibility to access remote learning. Their eyes hollow, their hope fading away.

“Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else,” Leonardo da Vinci once said. Education sits at the very heart of all Sustainable Development Goals. Without an inclusive quality education, the world will also drift further away from achieving gender equality, ending poverty, ensuring decent work and economic growth, and from achieving peace, justice and strong institutions - in both conflict- and crisis-affected countries that need it the most to build back better.

To read the full story on Exposure WE MUST MAKE IT HAPPEN – TOGETHER! by Education Cannot Wait - Education Cannot Wait (exposure.co)