Education in a quarter of the world’s countries is on the brink of collapse without urgent action

Toronto, 6 September 2021 – The education of hundreds of millions of children in a quarter of the world’s countries is at extreme or high risk of collapsing, Save the Children said today. New analysis from the organization finds that factors such as climate change, a lack of COVID-19 vaccines, displacement, attacks on schools and lack of digital connectivity are jeopardizing access to schooling.

The news that education is on the brink of collapse in 48 countries comes as academic school years tentatively re-start in many parts of the world with millions of children still unable to go into the classroom due to COVID-19 safety measures, economic impacts of the pandemic and continued attacks on education. This is on top of the 258 million children across the world who were already out of school prior to the pandemic [i].

Leaders need to learn from the COVID-19 education crisis, which has disrupted schooling for more than 90% of the world’s learners [ii], and shock-proof education systems to ensure children in a quarter of the world’s countries don’t have their futures stripped from them, the child rights organization said.

According to Save the Children’s new report, Build Forward Better, the DRC, Nigeria, Somalia, Afghanistan [iii], South Sudan, Sudan, Mali, and Libya have education systems that are at ‘extreme risk’. Syria and Yemen follow closely behind.

13-year-old Salem’s* school in Yemen was damaged in the country’s long conflict. He said: ‘I wasn’t doing well at school because there are no blackboards there and no activities. The playground was destroyed, the blackboards were all broken. Studying is important as I wish to become a doctor in the future.”

Save the Children has been rehabilitating schools in Yemen like Salem’s and he has now returned to the classroom.  He said: ‘When they (the schools) are not fixed, and there’s no education, no teachers… we are unable to learn. We do not feel safe when the schools are not fixed.’

It is estimated that 10-16 million [iv] children are at risk of not returning to school due to the economic impacts of COVID-19 alone. Parents may pull children out of school to work, or they may be forced into early marriage.

The climate crisis exacerbates the already huge risk, as schools are damaged or destroyed by extreme weather events, and an increasing number of children will likely have to flee their homes, leaving behind their education.

The new data, which is the first of its kind, follows recent Save the Children research, which found that on average, children in low-income countries have lost 66% more of their lifetime schooldays during the pandemic compared with their peers in more well-off countries.

Danny Glenwright, president and CEO of Save the Children, said: “We already know that it is the poorest children who have suffered the most as a result of COVID-19 school closures.

“But sadly the pandemic is just one of the factors that is putting education – and children’s lives today and tomorrow – under threat. Around half of the 75 million children who have their education disrupted each year do so from climate and environmental threats like cyclones, floods and drought. Climate-related events have already contributed to over 50 million children being forced from their homes [v]. Abhorrent attacks on schools continue in countries like Nigeria and Yemen.”

Adding to ongoing contexts of huge youth unemployment, little primary school education and the digital divide in access to remote learning, these are creating a perfect storm for the next generation, Save the Children said.

According to the report, in order to save children’s education and prepare for the future, Ministries of Education and donors must work to tackle these threats to schooling. The affected countries need much more additional investment in their education systems from international donors.

Glenwright continued: “Children have suffered so much from this pandemic. We need to learn from this dreadful experience and act now– but it is simply not good enough to build ‘back’ to how things were. We need to build ‘forward’ and differently, using this as an opportunity for hope and positive change.”

The international community, including donors, need to step up and take responsibility for some of the factors that have placed these education systems at risk, such as conflict, climate change and vaccine inequity, Save the Children said. The charity pointed to the recent Global Education Summit, which failed to raise the target of $5 billion for global education, as an example of weak commitment to the world’s poorest children.

[i] UNESCO, 2019 New Methodology Shows that 258 Million Children, Adolescents and Youth Are Out of School – World | ReliefWeb

[ii] Save our Education report, Save the Children, July 2020

[iii] This index was put together prior to the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021

[iv] Different estimates exist on the impact of COVID-19 on children dropping out of school, including from Save the Children and UNESCO. This figure describes the range of estimates across both analyses.

[v] Climate Mobility and Children, UNICEF 2020