UN calls for schools to reopen ASAP

UN calls for schools to reopen ASAP

GENEVA: Schools closed due to the coronavirus pandemic must reopen as soon as possible, the United Nations insisted yesterday, estimating that the education of more than 600 million children was at stake. "This cannot go on," James Elder, spokesman for the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), told reporters in Geneva.

While acknowledging the difficult choices that governments have to make when facing the Covid-19 crisis and the possible spread of the disease, "schools should be the last to close and the first to reopen," he said, calling it a "terrible mistake" to reopen bars and pubs before schools. "Reopening schools cannot wait for all teachers and students to be vaccinated," he added, calling on governments to protect their education budgets despite the economic hardship caused by the pandemic.

While children in the northern hemisphere are on their summer holidays, in eastern and southern Africa, an estimated 40 percent of school-age children are currently out of school. Across that region, schools are being closed due to COVID-19 surges, with more than 32 million children estimated to be out of school due to pandemic-related closures or having failed to return after their classrooms reopened.

That comes on top of the estimated 37 million children who were