BOGOTA, Colombia, CMC – Latin America, and the Caribbean have reaffirmed their commitment to promote urgent educational recovery in the region after the losses recorded during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and guaranteeing essential learning for all children.
The World Bank said authorities in the education field have been meeting here this week to discuss and agree on concrete measures to ensure that all children and adolescents, especially those in vulnerable situations, develop the essential learning skills – reading, writing, mathematics, and socio-emotional skills – that will enable them to develop their full potential, achieve integral participation in society, and the continuity in their learning.
Despite significant efforts by governments, the World Bank said teachers and parents, children have lost, on average, 1.5 years of learning during the pandemic.
“After two years of school closures in the region, learning outcomes could have been set back more than ten years. The youngest and poorest have been hardest hit,” the Washington-based financial institution said.
The World Bank said preliminary evidence from several countries shows more significant losses at the primary than the secondary level and among students in the lowest socioeconomic groups.
“Collective learning losses will hurt Latin America and the Caribbean in the future, exacerbating inequalities and jeopardizing economic growth,” the bank said, that the meeting is part of the initiatives under the commitment to action on essential learning and its recovery, an official mechanism promoted globally by several international organizations including the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF); United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); United States Agency for International Aid (USAID), the United Kingdom Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
“Its purpose is to get governments and the education community to implement actions to ensure, at the highest political level, that all the world’s children achieve basic learning, and complements a regional commitment launched last year to protect and restore learning,” the World Bank said.
Regional director of Human Development at the World Bank, Luis Benveniste, said, “the educational losses in our countries represent a natural catastrophe. It is urgent to work to reverse them as soon as possible and with particular attention to the youngest and most vulnerable.
“The commitment to education is a fundamental tool, supported by the notion that no one should be left behind, the only way to move towards sustainable and inclusive development.”
UNICEF’s regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Garry Conille, said “In Latin America and the Caribbean, we are experiencing an unprecedented educational crisis that will have enormous and lasting repercussions for society.
“Currently, in our region, due to the effect of the pandemic, projections show that four out of every five children will not know how to read a simple text. What professional and technical future could they aspire to if, from their childhood, they do not have the fundamental learning skills?
“If the region’s governments do not take urgent measures to make up for what has been lost and ensure the basic foundations of learning, millions of children and adolescents are at risk of dropping out of school, especially those from indigenous and Afro-descendant communities.
“Leaving most of their childhood without knowing how to read and write is a social and economic cost that Latin America and the Caribbean cannot and should not afford. The future of this crisis is now. We cannot wait any longer to act,” Conille added.
The director of UNESCO’s Regional Bureau for Education in Latin America and the Caribbean, Claudia Uribe, said “we are living in a historical moment in which we must strengthen cooperation to work for the recovery and transformation of education in our countries.
“This is a priority after COVID-19 exacerbated educational inequalities and limited the right to education of the most vulnerable populations in Latin America and the Caribbean,” said Uribe, adding, “the region experienced the most extended interruption of face-to-face classes in the world, affecting more than 170 million students and their families.
“The impacts of this crisis continue and demand immediate and coordinated actions to rescue the present and future of children and young people in our region.”
IDB Education Chief Mercedes Mateo said education, and especially the accumulation of basic skills, is critical to overcoming structural inequalities, improving social mobility, and boosting the productivity growth the region needs.
“In Latin America and the Caribbean, over 50 percent of 15-year-olds do not understand what they read, and around 60 percent do not have basic math skills. We need to guarantee essential learning, which is the basis for acquiring the rest of the skills necessary to prosper in the 21st century.
Changing this reality is within our reach with evidence-based solutions. Achieving this depends on everyone’s commitment to move towards quality education,” said Mateo.
The World Bank said reversing the educational costs of the pandemic is “a critical task,” stating that the strategy to achieve this “must continue to focus on getting children back in school and accelerated catch-up learning, prioritizing essential content and addressing challenges such as children’s psychosocial well-being and persistent digital gaps.
“These efforts will also help ensure basic learning in the long term and require a clear commitment from policymakers, as well as technical and operational capacity and the necessary resources,” it added.
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