SAVE OUR EDUCATION Protect every child’s right to learn in the COVID-19 response and recovery Save the Children believes every child deserves a future. Around the world, we work every day to give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. When crisis strikes, and children are most vulnerable, we are always among the first to respond and the last to leave. We ensure children’s unique needs are met and their voices are heard. We deliver lasting results for millions of children, including those hardest to reach. We do whatever it takes for children – every day and in times of crisis – transforming their lives and the future we share. Acknowledgements This report was written by Hollie Warren and Emma Wagner. Thanks to Oliver Fiala for leading on the research and analysis for this report. Special thanks to our colleagues Maren Hemsett, Helle Gudmandsen, Marian Hodgkin, Rowan Ainslie, Tahera Bandali and Jess Edwards for their support with drafting sections of the report. We also appreciate the feedback of colleagues from across Save the Children member, regional and country offices whose contributions have undoubtedly improved the report. A number of expert reviewers also gave invaluable feedback, for which we are very grateful. We acknowledge the children and their carers who have shared their experiences with us and given us permission to use their images. Some names have been changed to protect identities. Published by Save the Children St Vincent House 30 Orange Street London WC2H 7HH UK savethechildren.net First published 2020 © Save the Children 2020 This publication may be used free of charge for the purposes of advocacy, campaigning, education and research, provided that the source is acknowledged in full. Cover photo: Hana, 14 in Gaza describes herself as someone who looked death in the eye and survived. She says education is the biggest challenge for girls in Gaza, as many are forced to stay at home with their families or simply cannot afford to go to school. She says “education is like a weapon in a person’s hand”. (Photo: Alessandra Sanguinetti / Save The Children) Typeset by GrasshopperDesign.net Contents Executive summary ii 1 An unprecedented education emergency 1 2 Keep learning alive 8 3 Prepare for a safe return to school 38 4 Build back for better learning 57 5 Recommendations: keep learning alive in the COVID-19 pandemic 75 Annex 1: Vulnerability Index 80 Annex 2: Financing gap 84 Annex 3: Estimating the increase in school dropout 87 Endnotes 88 Eloge, 15, a member of the Youth Council set up by Save the Children, in Kinshasa, in the DRC wears a facemask that she made. To keep herself busy during school closures, she makes masks for family members to protect themselves from the pandemic. PHOTO: CHRISTIAN MUTOMBO/SAVE THE CHILDREN Executive summary The school that 13-year-old Hawo from Somalia attends is closed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic – as are schools for nearly a billion children around the world. It’s not the first time her education has been interrupted. When her village was hit by drought in 2017, Hawo’s family lost everything. Over the past three years, they settled into a new home and started to build a new life. Hawo went back to school and was happy to be learning again. But now the COVID-19 pandemic has turned her life upside down once again. Without access to a TV or radio in her village, Hawo has limited ways to continue her studies during school closures. “I don’t know when we will be able to go back, so that I can continue my education and meet my friends,” she says. “This really worries me.” THE BIGGEST GLOBAL EDUCATION With ten years left to achieve SDG4, the question EMERGENCY OF OUR LIFETIME as to how the world proposes to reduce the widening gaps between the rhetoric of the education Today, Hawo’s hope for education, like the hopes commitments and the reality on the ground has of millions of other children around the world, is taken on a new urgency. in grave jeopardy. In early April 2020, in an effort The poorest and most marginalised children to halt the spread of COVID-19, an estimated are at risk – especially from losing out on 1.6 billion learners globally – 91% of the total – learning and not returning to the classroom. were out of school. For the first time in human history, an entire generation of children globally Schools not only provide children with a space to have had their education disrupted. learn. For many children school is also a safe place where they can receive meals, access healthcare, This emergency comes on top of an existing learning including mental health services, and play with crisis. UNESCO’s most recent projections for their friends. Teachers can be children’s frontline Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4) – a good- responders and protectors. But with school closures, quality education for every last child – are dire: they children are missing out on these essentials the predict almost no progress on reducing the number school environment can offer. of children who are out of school by 2030.1 This equates to millions of children not going to As the virus begins to subside in some countries, school and not learning. And a generation of early childhood centres and schools are beginning children consigned to poorer life chances. to reopen and children are returning. They face challenges in trying to learn in an environment Before the pandemic struck, 258 million children where the virus still exists and where schools need 2 3 were out of school, including 130 million girls. to adapt to a new reality – physical distancing, And even when children were at school, many learning in shifts, an increased focus on hygiene were not learning. 53% of 10-year-olds in low- and practices and concerns over children’s wellbeing. middle-income countries are not able to read well, increasing to 80% in low-income countries.4 ii “I’m so sad that I will miss school.” PHOTO: SAID FADHAYE The world’s most vulnerable children may not have Even for those children who do return to school, been in school in the first place – and if they were, many will have experienced significant setbacks they now may not make it back there. These with their learning and wellbeing. In low-income children include: and conflict-affected countries, the poorest children • children pushed into poverty because of do not have access to the internet or devices to COVID-19, who may be forced to work because access online learning. Their parents may not be their families are struggling to put food on the able to read and write. Even if children in these table and keep a roof over their heads situations are able to get hold of printed materials, SAVE OUR EDUCATION SAVE • adolescent girls who now face an increased risk they are unlikely to be in a position to continue of gender-based violence, early pregnancy or to learn to a satisfactory level. Many children will child marriage, trapped in a cycle of violence have experienced stress and anxiety without the and poverty, and denied the chance to fulfil safety, protection and support that schools and their potential teachers afford, on top of the socioeconomic effects • refugee and internally displaced children – like of the crisis on families and households that were Rohingya children forced to leave Myanmar or already struggling. Syrian children fleeing conflict – who live in The global community hopes that before too long overcrowded camps and settlements with little a vaccine for COVID-19 will be found, produced or no basic healthcare and limited opportunities and universally delivered, and the world will become to learn safer. But unless action is taken now, the • children living in conflict-affected areas who are long-term legacies of the pandemic will be at risk of being recruited into armed groups; rising inequality and a devastating impact children forced to do hazardous and exploitative on children’s learning. work; children forced into marriage and early pregnancy New analysis for this report shows how • children with disabilities who already struggle to COVID-19 may affect both the funding and access inclusive education opportunities. Children the delivery of education in some of the with disabilities made up 15% of all out-of-school countries most at risk of falling behind. children before the pandemic.5 We know from previous crises that the longer Millions of children risk losing out on their children are out of school, the greater the risk that education. The price they will have to pay is they do not return to school. their future. Our new analysis examines which countries are most at risk of seeing their progress towards SDG4 stalling or even reversing due to the As part of the response impact of the pandemic. It suggests that up to to COVID-19 in Uganda, 9.7 million children are at risk of dropping out Save the Children has distributed learning of school due to rising levels of child poverty. packs to more than 100,000 children We identified 12 countries – Niger, Mali, Chad, across the country. Liberia, Afghanistan, Guinea, Mauritania, Yemen, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire – as being at ‘extreme risk’ of falling behind in their progress towards SDG4. This comes at a time when we expect education budgets to be under pressure as governments shift spending towards the health and economic response to the pandemic. Our analysis estimates that the economic consequences of the pandemic could lead to an education financing gap in low- and middle-income countries of $77 billion over the course of the next two years.