The World Bank Education Director (Representative) said losing school is morally unacceptable
New Delhi:
According to the World Bank’s Director of Global Education, Jaime Saavedra, there is currently no justification for school closures before the pandemic, and even if there are new waves, school closures should be as a last resort, according to the World Bank’s Director of Global Education.
Saavedra, who is monitoring the impact of COVID-19 on the education sector, said there is no evidence that reopening schools has caused an increase in coronavirus cases and that schools are not ” safety”.
He also asserted that it makes no sense from a public policy standpoint to wait until children are vaccinated because “there is no science” behind it.
“There is no link between opening schools and the spread of coronavirus. There is no evidence to suggest a link between the two and there is currently no reason to keep schools closed. Even with a new wave of COVID-19, closing schools should be a last resort,” Saavedra told PTI in an interview from Washington.
“It makes no sense to keep restaurants, bars and shopping malls open and schools closed. No excuses,” he added.
According to various simulations by the World Bank, the health risks to children if schools are opened are low and the costs of closing them are extremely high.
“Throughout 2020, we are navigating in a sea of ignorance. We just don’t know what the best way to fight the pandemic is and the immediate response of most countries around the world is to close down. School doors. Time has passed since then and with Proof that between the end of 2020 and 2021, we’ve had several waves and there are a number of countries that have opened schools,” he said.
“We were able to see if opening schools would affect the transmission of the virus and the new data shows that. Many counties have also had waves when schools are closed so it is clear that There is no role of school in some of the spikes.
“Even if children can get infected, and with Omicron it’s more common, deaths and serious illnesses in children are extremely rare. The risk to children is low and the cost is low. extremely high fees,” he added.
When asked about the concerns of unvaccinated children, he said: “No country has set a condition that only reopen schools after children are vaccinated. Because there is no science behind it. after it and it doesn’t make sense from a public policy perspective.”
Talking about the impact of school closures due to the pandemic in India, Saavedra said “the impact is more severe than previously thought” and that learning poverty is likely to increase much more than anticipated. guess.
Learning poverty means not being able to read and understand a simple text by the age of 10.
“Academic poverty in India is expected to increase from 55% to 70% due to underweight and more children out of school. Academic adjusted years of schooling are estimated estimates a decrease of nearly a year in schooling while average annual earnings could decline in a pessimistic scenario by as much as 9% per student in the future.
“In countries like India, where educational inequalities were widespread before the pandemic and levels of learning poverty were enormous, there’s a lot at stake. Almost two years later, millions of children still have schools closed and others may never return to school.
“The learning loss many children are experiencing is morally unacceptable. And the potential increase in learning poverty can have a serious impact on productivity, future income and happiness for this generation of children and young people, their families and the world, he said.
Streamlining curricula, rescheduling learning schedules, and preparing teachers for the enormous task ahead are among the recommendations made by the World Bank to reduce the long-term learning loss caused by closing schools during the pandemic.
“More data on learning loss from the states and the country is needed. Preferably this will be in the form of personalized learning data at the student level because the situation is very heterogeneous at the school level.” child level.
“The focus on having personalized learning data aligns with best practices and aligns with our advice that we’re currently delivering to countries. Again, children the numbers we present are simulations by the World Bank showing what would happen if reopening the school system were not prioritized These numbers could be reversed if governments could act now now,” he said.
A 2020 report by the World Bank for Education, titled “Defeated or Broken? Informality and COVID-19 in South Asia,” predicted that prolonged school closures due to the pandemic COVID-19 outbreak in India could cost more than 400 billion USD in future income of the country.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
