Covid-19 Increase Learning Poverty

Learning Poverty is defined as children not able to read by age 10, and according to to the World Bank as reported by Children International, 72 million more elementary children will be added onto the number of children affected by Learning Poverty. The increasing number of learning poverty cases is due to schools closure brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic. To date, 1.6 billion students has been affected.

We cannot rule out the possibilities of another pandemic after this COVID-19, and another round of schools closure will result in more children not able to read, write and count. World Bank already estimated that USD10 trillion of these children future earnings is deemed lost. What figures are we looking at if another pandemic were to hit us?

This Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the crucial need for education infrastructure to be revisited to address the education shortfall, especially in countries where internet is a big headache! We cannot rule out a hybrid of virtual and physical class education delivery. There is no time to loose to wait for the current pandemic to end before we start looking at the situation. The time is now.

To read further on the basic areas required to be addressed to strengthen the current education infrastructure, please stay tune to another blog post on Education Infrastructure - The New Normal

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