Impact of Pandemic to education

Kathrina Mae H. Omlang

The pandemic has pushed the world into the deepest global recession in living memory which will have lasting effects on economies and public finances. National authorities and the international community need to protect education financing through the following avenues: strengthen domestic revenue mobilization, preserve the share of expenditure for education as a top priority and address inefficiencies in education spending; strengthen international coordination to address the debt crisis; and protect official development assistance for education. Strengthening the resilience of education systems enables countries to respond to the immediate challenges of safely reopening schools and positions them to better cope with future crises. In this regard, governments could consider the following: focus on equity and inclusion; reinforce capacities for risk management, at all levels of the system to ensure strong leadership and coordination; and enhance consultation and communication mechanisms. The massive efforts made in a short time to respond to the shocks to education systems remind us that change is possible. We should seize the opportunity to find new ways to address the learning crisis and bring about a set of solutions previously considered difficult or impossible to implement.

The following entry points could be to the fore of our efforts: focus on addressing learning losses and preventing dropouts, particularly of marginalized groups; offer skills for employability program; support the teaching profession and teachers’ readiness; expand the definition of the right to education to include connectivity; remove barriers to connectivity; strengthen data and monitoring of learning; strengthen the articulation and flexibility across levels and types of education and training. Shocks and aftershocks of the pandemic. The world was already facing formidable challenges in fulfilling the promise of education as a basic human right. Despite the near universal enrolment at early grades in most countries, an extraordinary number of children more than 250 million were out of school,2 and nearly 800 million adults were illiterate. Moreover, even for those in school, learning was far from guaranteed.

Primary school age children worldwide were estimated to lack basic reading skills from a financing point of view, the challenge was already daunting before COVID-19. The early 2020 estimate of the financing gap to reach Sustainable Development Goal quality education in low and lower-middle-income countries. It is estimated that the COVID19 crisis will increase this financing gap UNESCO, Out-of-School Children and Youth “The impact of Covid-19 on the cost of achievingand human development: Assessing the crisis, envisioning the recovery. 2020 Human Development Perspectives, 2020, The COVID-19 pandemic has caused the largest disruption of education in history, having already had a near universal impact on learners and teachers around the world, from pre-primary to secondary schools, technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions, universities, adult learning, and skills development establishments. The ability to respond to school closures changes dramatically with level of development: for instance, during the second quarter 2020, 86 per cent of children in primary education have been effectively out of school in countries with low human development.

The author is Teacher

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I at Pampanga High School, Division of City of San

Fernando, (P)