Bangladesh
School | Children Future of 3 crore 70 lakh children in risk due to coronavirus pandemic
Dhaka, October 20: The coronavirus pandemic has put the lives of three crore seventy lakh children at risk in Bangladesh. The disease has also affected around 80 crore children in South, South East and East Asia.
This has been caused due to school clusure for prolonged time, forced shut owing to the pandemic.
The data came on the heels of a report titled 'Situation Analysis on the Impact of Covid-19 and the Counter-Assessment Activities' on Education in Asia published by UNICEF and UNESCO on Tuesday (October 19th).
A UNICEF press release highlighted the continuing impact of the epidemic on children's education and the programs and initiatives taken by governments around the world to address it. At a time when children are usually expected to return to school from their annual vacation, the report calls on governments to reopen schools as soon as they are safe.
For example, in some countries, such as the Philippines, schools are closed during epidemics, which are still in place, depriving two crore seventy lakh students from pre-primary to secondary levels of access to physical education. Until the opening of schools and colleges in Bangladesh on September 12, these institutions were closed for the entire period of the pandemic.
Even at the present time, when the world has entered the last quarter of 2021, schools are still closed for the second year due to the spread of new strains of coronavirus across the region.
Thus the consequences of issues related to continuous school closures are extremely serious, including loss of education; Mental distress; Not getting school meals and regular vaccinations; Increased risk of dropping out of structural education; And increased child labor and child marriage. Many of these horrific consequences are already affecting countless children and many will be felt in the years to come.
