Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Reuters
Reuters
Health

Remote learning is setting back millions of South Asian children - UNICEF

FILE PHOTO: Students wearing masks attend their class under the trees as they maintain social distancing outside their school, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Gund on the outskirts of Srinagar September 30, 2020. REUTERS/Danish Ismail/File Photo

Hundreds of millions of children in South Asian are suffering because their schools have been closed because of the coronavirus but they lack online devices and connections for remote learning, UNICEF said on Thursday.

Authorities should prioritise the safe reopening of schools because even before the pandemic, almost 60% of children in the densely populated region were unable to read and understand a simple text by the age of 10, the U.N. children's agency said.

"School closures in South Asia have forced hundreds of millions of children and their teachers to transition to remote learning in a region with low connectivity and device affordability," said George Laryea-Adjei, UNICEF's regional director for South Asia.

"Even when a family has access to technology, children are not always able to access it. As a result, children have suffered enormous setbacks in their learning journey."

The repeated school closures since last year had affected 434 million children in South Asia and a substantial proportion of them were learning significantly less compared with pre-pandemic levels, UNICEF said in a report based on research in India, the Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

In India of children aged 14-18 reported lower levels of learning than when physically at school. In Sri Lanka, 69% of parents of primary-school children said that their children were learning less or a lot less.

In Pakistan, 23% of younger children did not have access to any device for remote learning. In India, 42% of children between the ages of 6 and 13 reported no remote learning during school closures.

"The safe reopening of schools must be considered an utmost priority for all governments," said George Laryea-Adjei.

Indian epidemiolgists and social scientists have asked authorities to reopen classes for all children, saying the benefits outweigh the risks, especially as poor, rural children are missing out on online education.

South Asia, with nearly 2 billion people, has reported more than 37 million coronavirus infections and more than 523,000 deaths.

(Reporting by Krishna N. Das; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.