TRUTH BE TOLD

THE PANDEMIC’S BIGGEST VICTIMS: KIDS

Image credit: ROHIT FARMER on Unsplash.

By DR VICKI BISMILLA

The COVID-19 pandemic has created the largest disruption of education systems in history, affecting nearly 1.6 billion learners in more than 190 countries and all continents. Closures of schools and other learning spaces have impacted 94 per cent of the world’s student population, up to 99 per cent in low and lower-middle income countries (United Nations Policy Brief on Education During Covid 19 and Beyond, August 2020).

School closures not only disrupt the learning of children but in many developing countries they also discontinue the nutrition programs that schools provide. Unlike affluent countries like Canada, US, UK and other western economies where the pandemic might have stimulated innovation and technology, the education of children in third world countries has suffered disastrous consequences. Education is a basic human right and the United Nations makes several recommendations that all governments need to heed.

These include: the protection of children in school environments, the protection of education financing, the honing of risk management skills in education portfolios and instituting mechanisms to address literacy gaps. In poor countries with fragile education systems children kept away from school may never return. They may be assigned domestic chores to allow parents to find work to put food on the table or their school systems might have collapsed. They have no hope at all of digital learning and no computers for online learning if these were available to them in rural and impoverished villages and towns.

Even in the privileged education environment of Canada researchers estimate that the learning gap between affluent and poor has increased by 30 per cent. This will have serious impact on the future of children, their ability to qualify for jobs, on the country’s human development, on food security and a ripple effect on the economy. It is the duty and responsibility of governments to protect and promote the education of all children as a basic human right.

The OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) is an international policy organization with 38 member countries. In their document on the impact of COVID 19 on education, they caution that education funding may be impacted as countries divert funds to healthcare and the economy as those sectors have become overwhelmed. While some countries have funded some relief packages for students like textbooks, distance learning supports, extension of student loans for tertiary education, these are stop-gap measures.

Long term education of populations will need long term protection policies.

The Harvard Gazette, in its corona- virus update series, cautions against the one size fits all factory model of education used in most countries. It suggests that it is time for a paradigm shift, to look at the situational differences and disparities among student populations in both basic and tertiary educational systems. Even in affluent countries like the United States and Canada, students in disadvantaged areas need government- provided access to technology and learning tools that are taken for granted by students in affluent families. Boston, for example, has created wi-fi hotspots throughout the city where learners can go to get internet access. But it is a patchwork of fragile efforts by a few municipalities to mitigate the impact of the crisis in education. These are not hand-outs but important foresight into developing educated populations leading to improved economies. Even educated parents are struggling to keep their children’s learning at capacity in this two-year covid-truncated schooling period. The impact on remote, rural and disadvantaged communities will be ravaging.

I have tried to reach out to provincial education politicians and bureaucrats to ask how they are planning to serve the education of under-prepared students but the answers I get are pathetic.

In one response letter from a regional manager in the Ministry of Education, she cut and pasted several paragraphs on COVID screening, masking, hand hygiene, distancing and cleaning copied from several government pamphlets with not a word in answer to the educational question and in her concluding paragraph she wrote, “I encourage you to review the district school board’s website...and speak with the principal and school superintendent.”

I was gobsmacked by her arrogance. Perhaps you as Desi News readers can get better answers from your politicians.

Please ask for the sake of children; they are the future of this country.

Dr Vicki Bismilla is a retired Superintendent of Schools and retired college Vice-President, Academic, and Chief Learning Officer. She has authored two books.